The Forest Lake swim and dive team entered its home dual meet against the Woodbury Royals on Thursday, Oct. 3, by coming off a 1-1 outing in the week prior. The Rangers picked up a 96-85 win over Park Center on Monday, Sept. 23, before falling short of victory to White Bear Lake on Thursday, Sept. 26, losing by a 103-82 final score.
This time around, head coach Rochelle McKenzie notes that due to the high-end talent that Woodbury has and the Rangers’ lack of depth, the aspect of confidence was already running low heading in.
“As any competitor knows, it’s hard to go into a meet where you know it will be a tough night,” McKenzie said. “Such is the case with Woodbury, we simply don’t have the depth to come out ahead, so it then turns into a focus on personal accomplishments and overall improvement.”
Despite the highly-competitive environment, McKenzie is satisfied with the amount of sportsmanship that is shown between both teams whenever her Rangers match up with the Royals, where it’s “still always a fun meet,” according to McKenzie.
“One amazing thing about this meet, however, is the overall amount of sportsmanship that we see, it’s always fun competition with Woodbury. Their head coach has a strong focus on positivity and sportsmanship, just like we do as a team, it’s a good time,” she said, further noting that both schools participated in the cha-cha-slide together prior to the official start.
Between its junior varsity and varsity swimmers, Forest Lake saw 33 new personal bests, including a handful of season best times and scores. In the varsity 200m relay, Megan Reid, Delaney Nilius and Sylvie and Avery Fallon, all opened up the night’s action with a 1st-place finish by nearly three seconds and over two seconds faster than the group has been all year long.
In the 200m freestyle, Hailey Johnson saw a second-place finish, as well as both a season and personal best time of 2:09.74, over a second from her previous best time that was set at the section finals a season ago.
“Hailey is one of our top veterans who excels in the 500, and bounces around between the 100 fly and 200 free for her second event,” McKenzie said. “She just does so well in both that it’s always a tough decision to make as to where to place her. But, it’s always a good problem to have.”
The Rangers saw a huge season-best time from Nilius in the 200 IM, where the talented swimmer grabbed 3rd-place in a final time of 2:32.06. Grace True was next in line in 4th-place with a time of 2:36.15, another season-best. The sister duo of senior captain Avery Fallon and freshman Sylvie Fallon had a third and fourth-place finish in the 50m freestyle, earning final times of 26.94 and 27.68, respectively.
“Avery has been incredibly strong for us this year,” McKenzie said. “Her younger sister Sylvie has improved and has been faster in all of her events this year compared to last.”
The diving aspect continues to be a strong focal point for the Rangers this season, as the event is led by veteran Lacy Gray, where she earned a third-place finish, while seventh-graders Neva Steven, Suri Waddle and Savannah Jones were all close behind.
Sylvie Fallon had another successful outing in the 100m fly event, where she took second-place overall, while her older sister Avery grabbed a great second-place finish in the 100m freestyle. The 500m freestyle saw second-place from Johnson, who was .32 seconds away from another personal best that was also set at the section finals action last season. Nora Schmidt completed the race in fourth with a huge time drop for a personal best of 6:05.66.
Capping off the last few events, Reid found a strong second-place finish in the 100m backstroke, and Nilius, who won Section 7AA a year ago, brought in yet another first-place finish in the 100m breaststroke.
Following the stellar performances across the board from the Rangers, Forest Lake still came up short, as the Woodbury team ultimately won the dual meet by a final score of 103-78.
“Swimming and diving is one of those sports that is just as much a team sport as it is an individual sport, so even when we might not win the meet overall, there are still plenty of opportunities to “win” individually,” McKenzie said.
“We are getting to a really tough part of the season when we start drastically increasing our training yards and intensity in preparation for the championship meets at the end of the season. With that said, we never really know what to expect. It becomes increasingly important for the girls to focus on their training and preparations, and it can be overwhelming,” she said.
“We are, to say the least, incredibly impressed with how the team has been performing, and the meet against Woodbury was no exception.”
Despite the loss and the group moving towards a tougher stretch of the fall season, McKenzie is excited to see where her Rangers will end up by the season’s end.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season rounds out ahead of sections in November.”
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