On January 4, the girls varsity swim team took second place overall at the annual Nancy Brandt Invitational. This invitational is set to honor Nancy Brandt, a prior teacher and coach at Summit starting in 1993, when the school first opened. This invitational has been taking place since 2011 after Brandt’s retirement. This year, Brandt herself was able to attend finals. Head swim coach Lucas Benson said Brandt’s presence created a special atmosphere for the meet.
“Having Nancy there was really neat. She was able to hand out the medals to those who placed and that was special. The team’s hard work really showed through during this invitational and I was proud to be able to show my team off to her. I try to teach them to embrace the difficulty of practices because that discipline leads to the fun and excitement of competition,” Benson said.
Junior Sarah Lauck placed 7th in the 200 freestyle and 4th in the 500 freestyle. She said she tries her best to discipline herself in hopes of improving her times for self growth and admiration.
“My plans for the rest of the season are just to keep focusing at practice daily and to really push myself this year in the 500 at state to hopefully make finals this year,” Lauck said.
The girl’s swim team strives to surprise themselves and continue to improve. Senior captain Julia Veith said their strongest element as a team is their diversity of swimmers and teamwork.
“We ended up getting second at the Nancy Brandt, and we were honestly all surprised because we just didn’t think we’d get second. And I think it’s because we have such a wide variety of swimmers that are able to do so many different things whereas other schools might have a few really good people. The variety at our school and on our team really helped to get that second place,” Veith said.