Women’s Swim
After winning the district title for the first time in school history, the women’s swim team qualified for prelims in every event at state, sending 12 athletes to the King County Aquatic Center for competition: Sanna Torgersen, Chloe Wies, Zia Graham, Aya Byrne, Maria Bull, Anna Shuler, Hanna Volk, Zoe Thorpe, Gabi Young, Harper Matsumoto, and Kaylin Jones.
“My goal was to go to districts and state,” Said Zia Graham, a leg on the state-qualifying 400 Free Relay, “The division switch isn’t why we had success, but we got to send more people to the higher-up meets because of it.”
Their success at state continued in the final races, with a State championship-winning performance in the 200 Medley Relay: Maria Bull, Chloe Wies, Harper Matsumoto, and Kaylin Jones. The same quartet swam a school record-breaking time of 4:05.38 in the 200 Free Relay, placing them second in the state. Scoring a total of 186.5 points, women’s swim claimed third place out of 40 teams.
Cross-Country
After winning both the Metro league and District 2A Championships, Keegan Aicher, Sohum Bhat, Ian Cook, Damon Giles, Walker Haucke, Isaac Notzka, and Alex Tipton represented the men’s cross country team in state on Saturday, November 9th at Sun Willows Golf Course, ending the season 7th in the state 2A division.
With the switch to 2A, post-season success was anticipated early on for both the women and men’s team. Hannah Barnes, Anya Selivanoff, and Georgia Vetter qualified individually for State. “Our expectations were high this season,” said Vetter, ending the season with a personal record of 22:03.1 at state. Barnes placed top 75 in the 2A division, crossing the finish line at 21:01.8.
Being pushed down to the 2A division leveled the playing field drastically, eliminating monster-sized teams like Lincoln and Roosevelt from postseason competition.
“There is for sure imposter syndrome,” said Vetter, ”But the size of competition makes sense for the size of our small team.”
Volleyball
2 new banners are on their way following Volleyball’s 2A Metro league victory, claimed after defeating Chief Sealth in a tie breaking match. As well as their second place district title in their state qualifying match, a 3-0 sweep against Evergreen high school. Throughout the season, Nathan Hale was consistently ranked top 10 in the state, going undefeated for several consecutive matches leading up to the state tournament.
“State was a surprise…even with the division switch,” said Junior Frankie Richard.
After making their way to the Yakima Sundome, they began their State journey off with a 0-3 loss to Ridgefield, but followed with a win over Orting, ultimately getting knocked out by Chief Sealth in their third game, ending the season off in the state tournament for the first time ever in school history.