Funny how much perspective can change with experience sometimes.
In February, Whiteland’s girls qualified for the state swimming and diving meet in the 400-yard freestyle relay, the first time ever that the team had sent a relay quartet to the IU Natatorium.
At the time, the Warriors were just happy to be there. But just making it isn’t enough to satisfy them anymore.
Nor should it be, probably. With three quarters of that state foursome back, Whiteland expects great things from itself this winter.
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"Knowing that we can do it, that’s just our basic now," senior Addison Daily said. "We have competed at that level, and we can continue to compete at that level and above, it pushes me a little more in the water, and I know that the other girls probably feel the same way."
The momentum from last season — when the 400 relay team made state and the 200 free relay just missed getting a callback after the sectional — ran into a wall during the offseason, though. First, the COVID-19 outbreak shut down pools and had swimmers all across the nation out of the water for more than two months. Then, after finally getting back into a groove during the summer club season, Whiteland’s girls got caught up in contact tracing and had to go into quarantine in early November.
Missing roughly 10 practices right at the start of the high school season was an unwelcome setback.
"It was hard for all of us," senior Avery Herring said, "especially the ones who had been quarantined (in the spring) and then were with the clubs this summer, and then immediately had to go back into quarantine. And really, when you’re in quarantine, there’s nothing you can do because there’s nothing like swimming in a pool. You can’t really substitute anything. You can do weightlifting, you can run, but there’s really nothing like it."
Still, the Warriors refuse to sit back and use that lost time as an excuse. Coach Alec DeWitt shrugs it off, saying only that "we’re a little behind where we want to be" but that he’s not particularly worried about the big picture, especially for the team’s top three swimmers — Daily, Herring and sophomore Amelia Edens.
With that trio leading the way, DeWitt expects this Whiteland team to overcome the early hurdles and accomplish big things the rest of the way.
"I think between Addison and Avery and probably Amelia, I think the (school) record board will be cleared," he said. "I think we’ll probably break every record on our board besides the diving record, which is exciting."
Just rewriting school records isn’t the end goal, though. The Warriors want to get back to the state meet and advance past the Friday night preliminaries; last season’s 400 free relay crew — one of four from Johnson County to make the 32-team field — was fairly close to moving on time-wise but got disqualified for a false start.
Daily and Herring both want to establish a higher bar for the Whiteland girls before they leave. The seniors are looking to get the program to the point where qualifying for state isn’t a nice surprise, but getting there and scoring is an expectation.
"I don’t want our legacy to just end as the first girls relay to go to state in one event," Daily said. "I want to eventually be able to say that Whiteland placed top 10 at state; I feel like that should be a goal in the next couple of years, and I feel like they can do it, with or without us."
The preference, obviously, would be with.
