Maverick Swim Team Heats Up a Cold January
Freezing temperatures and a state locked in ice did not cool the Mavericks. At the 20th annual Division II State Championship meet hosted by Seton, Miller School’s swim team combined personal bests and podium finishes to show both where the program stands now and where it is headed.
Returning state qualifiers anchored the Mavericks’ top performances. Lila Kate Robinson delivered one of the meet’s strongest distance efforts, placing third in the 200 freestyle and second in the 500 freestyle against a field of nineteen teams. On the boys’ side, Peyton Skipper finished second in both the 100 backstroke and 100 breaststroke, while Zachary Binter added a fourth-place finish in the 500 freestyle.
Those swims helped the Maverick women to a 12th-place team finish and the men to 9th overall, with the teams combining for eight personal bests.
But the meet’s deeper story sat just behind those podium finishes.
Fourteen swimmers represented Miller School. Eight had never competed in a meet this large. Six were brand new to competitive swimming this season. In the 200 medley relay, Nick Wilber stepped up to swim on the A relay. In the 400 freestyle relay, Inigo, in his first year in the sport, earned a spot on the A relay as well.
The progress was visible. At the start of the winter, some swimmers were learning how to fit goggles and caps. By championship season, they were executing flip turns, racing under pressure, and delivering clean relay starts on a state stage.
For those who followed the team last year, there was a familiar feeling. A season ago, a Maverick relay produced one of the program’s most exciting moments in the 4x100 relay at this same meet. This year’s story was different in tone but similar in meaning. The program is no longer brand new, but it is still building, still stretching, still welcoming athletes at every point on the learning curve.
The scoreboard recorded placements. The season recorded growth and introduced a new group of students to a sport that they can continue doing the rest of their active lives. And for a team that not long ago was just an idea, that may be the most important result of all.
