The girls varsity swim team could not live up to last year’s first place title at the annual Highland Invite. However, they did place third out of eight schools on Saturday, Jan. 11.

“[Last year] we got first, and this year we got third. We lost three seniors from last year, so we are pulling up people from JV. It’s kind of a rebuilding period for us,” Tracilyn Muszalski (12), team captain, said.

The athletes experienced a period of pre-meet panic, being that some girls were unable to get in the water for multiple days with only a few days left before the greatly anticipated Highland Invite. This is because three of the girls’ practices total were cancelled due to the heavy snow storm and the following days of unsafe conditions during the week leading up to the meet.

“The snow really affected our practice schedule because we missed three days, and missing practice for three days really affects our swimming,” Victoria Springman (10) said.

These cancellations were a big scare to the swimmers and greatly added to the pre-existing nerves the swimmers were experiencing.

“When you’re a swimmer in your big training process, it takes two days to make up for every day that you miss and to get back to where you were before,” Muszalski said.

Lake Central took third place, following Munster who took second and Crown Point who took first. The girls will take their marks to race against many of the same teams on Saturday Jan. 18, at the conference meet.

“We’ll have another big atmosphere with a lot of teams, so we’ll be given another chance to prove that we are one of the best teams in the region,” Muszalski said.