State results have swim team encouraged about its future

Photo by Bryan Oller

Allie Pieri swims in the freestyle race during the Mustangs’ Jan. 26 dual with Colorado Academy.

A young Manitou Springs girls swim team couldn’t help but leave the Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center in Thornton with smiles on their faces.

This team was thin in numbers but still managed to make its way to the state meet on Feb. 11 and 12, giving some of the younger swimmers valuable experience. They fought through prelims to get several positions back into finals, but the highlight of the experience was day’s last race.

The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Summer Tenpas, Sophia Hyman, Theron Heim and Selah Combs finished in 4 minutes, 7.53 seconds to cut nearly 10 seconds off their prelim time from the previous day.

“I have no idea where that 4:16 came from,” coach Whitney Nuci said. “Them seeing their splits individual, these girls are looking at the 100 state time. They can do that.”

Each member of that 400 relay team will be back next season, but the Mustangs will lose some key leadership as Aidan Coté will depart the program. Seeing what she meant to the program in her time at Manitou helps her teammates understand the expectations that will fall on them next season and beyond.

“There’s determination now, I wouldn’t say to step in and take (the seniors’) place because we’ll always miss them, but fill those shoes and try to get those times down and get points for our team,” Tenpas said. 

The returning Mustangs will use the thrill of competing at state, along with the improvement they saw from Day 1 to Day 2, to increase their training and get the team back toward the top of the team standings.

But until then, they couldn’t help but be encouraged as the meet concluded and their season officially came to an end.

“We’re pretty happy with our times,” Tenpas said. “Next year we’ll train harder so that we can do even better.”