Swimming may not be a first thought when someone think of High School sports. But Palm Harbor University’s swim team has proven once again that they are a force to be reckoned with. As the team’s season comes to an end, let’s rewind and repay some of the teams highlights.

The team closed their regular season (not including district, regionals, and state) undefeated. After weeks of hard core training and tapering, they beat old time rivals such as East Lake and Countryside who the boys have a history of passing the winning title between.

Sporting bright tutus, face paint, dyed hair,  and pride. The team killed their annual spirit meet. Eight hours later the team came out, sunburned, voiceless, but had the biggest smiles on the deck as they carried out their trophies. Not only did they dominate place in spirit but also came out on top in all categories.

This year Palm Harbor’s team continued the 10 year streak of going home with overall champions at PCAC. They took first place in both boy, girls, and overall. The boy’s overall score was 434 with countryside behind them with 340 points. The girls won with 453.50 points, also with Countryside behind them with 361 points.

It’s been thought before that it’s hard to keep up on a high school’s sports team as a freshman but this year’s freshman are re-defying this thought. Seven freshman moved onto districts in hope of taking it all the way to states. Freshman Alexis Hernandez got to add her name in the top five fastest swim times in Palm Harbor history in her 500 freestyle on Wednesday night. We wish good luck to Jake Burns Ebraham Cabling, Lucas Cote, Alexis Hernandez, Liam Kugler, Kelsey Thurin,and Quinn Ragan as they head off to their first districts.

“High school swimming gave me a chance to make new friends and the fact that I helped contribute to the team’s overall success and undefeated season is just an added bonus,” said freshman Alexis Hernandez.

And just to add to their unbeatable season, on October 22nd 2016, a selected number of swimmers hopped on a bus to Sarasota, Florida at the Shelby Aquatic Center, to compete in hope of taking their team to victory. Palm Harbor University took 2nd in boys, girls, and overall.

“I am very excited that in my final season at PHU we were able to have a perfect storm. I am able to stay that I started and finished my high school swim career with the same record. I think over the past two seasons leading up to this year PHU has definitely grown as a team. As each year goes by our team gets deeper and deeper and I think that’s a key reason why we won,” said senior Olivia Hom who thinks about her last season as bitter sweet. The team is counting down the days to Regionals.