The swim team will compete in a dual-meet at the LISD Eastside Aquatic Center on Oct. 19 at 6 p.m. 

Coach Donzie Lilly said their season so far has had a lot of surprising times and a learning curve with new team members.

“We went from 44 kids all the way up to 62,” Lilly said. “We’re trying to get everyone acclimated, but it’s hard to have practice when you have elite level swimmers and people who are new to the sport. It’s been challenging, but [we] never stray away from challenges.” 

This season, the team has competed in two dual-meets, a pentathlon and an intrasquad meet. In their last meet, a tri-meet against Plano West and Plano Senior, Hebron placed third. Senior Amber Du placed second in both the 50 free and 500 free last meet.

“[I’ll] be swimming the 50 free and the 100 fly,” Du said. “We’re going against Flower Mound and they’re really fast, so I’m just hoping I don’t get third or fourth: I’m going to aim for at least second, if not first.” 

Lilly said this meet is mainly to practice as the team builds up for Texas Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association (TISCA), district, then regionals. TISCA, the midseason meet, is scheduled for Nov. 19-20. 

“We had a big phase working on underwaters, now we’re transitioning into working on turns, and we’ll start working on starts,” Lilly said. “I’m excited to see how well we’ll do on Tuesday with those turns.” 

The lifting of COVID-19 restrictions will allow more swimmers to advance to district and regionals compared to the reduced number from last season. Senior Ania Rejniak anticipates that a few of the swimmers will be able to advance to state this year. 

“[The season has] been going pretty well; it’s still the beginning of the season, but we’re working hard, in and out of the pool,” Rejniak said. “It’s exciting for things to come.”

The meets leading up to bigger season meets are just practice, Lilly said. The team is continuing with dryland and swim workouts leading up to this meet.

“Swim is an interesting sport,” Lilly said. “We’re looking to swim our fastest time [once] at regionals or state. [For this meet,] we’re looking for good race mechanics. Good starts, good breakouts, good underwaters, good turns, good finishes.”