The swim team has already won a meet against the McKinney Boyd High School team, 244 to 113, less than one month into the start of the season.

With the major Texas Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association (TISCA) meet coming up on Nov. 18 (Preliminaries) and 19 (Finals), the coaches and team members are practicing every day.

“We’ve been focusing a lot on aerobic development and we’re in a transition phase right now where we’re working a little bit more on threshold training,” Head Coach Lena Harrington said. “Which basically means they’re training harder on faster intervals, so we’ll start to see them get a little bit tired in the next few weeks, but we’ll continue to push them to swim fast in meets.”

Try-outs were hosted in the summer so that in-pool training could begin when the school year started. Practicing daily on streamlines, kicking, dive starts, form and more, the athletes are preparing themselves for their upcoming competitions.

“We’re excited to see how much we’ve improved since last year and to see our hard work pay off,” junior and Varsity captain Kate Hilton said.

Attending daily practices and spending time together outside of the pool has created a mutual bond among the members of the team.

“We all got along pretty quickly, ” JV captain senior Sara Nguyen, said. “After each and every single meet, we go out and eat, get along with each other, and get to know each other more.”

As with most sports, swimming encourages all members of the team to get along and to focus on the group’s overall performance.

“A lot of people think that swimming is an individual sport, but really it’s just as much of a team sport as some of the other big sports we have like football and soccer,” Varsity captain senior Matthew Carey said. “A lot of swimming is getting everybody motivated and everybody participating even if there’s just one person in the pool, so teamwork is a big deal.”

What truly separates the school’s swim team from the rest is their acclimation towards each other as a cohesive family unit.

“They really care about each other, more than probably any team I’ve ever coached,”Coach Harrington said. “I would say that’s probably the most unique aspect of this team. They’re very family oriented and they take care of each other.”

Looking forward to meets in the coming month against JJ Pearce and Plano Senior on Nov. 9, the Dallas Cup competition on Nov. 11, and the TISCA meet on Nov. 18 and 19, the swim team members continue to train and prepare, in hopes to give the school its most successful year in swimming yet.

“We have a fantastic Varsity team and a fantastic JV team,” Carey said. “We’ve already had a win under our belts, and this year I’m excited because I believe that we’ll continue to win and continue to set the standard.”