In their first meet, the girls swim and dive team narrowly swam away with a win. Going up against Blue Valley North, Blue Valley, Blue Valley Southwest and Blue Valley West, BVNW won the meet with a total of 343 points.

BVN placed second with a total of 338 points, BV placed third with a total of 273 points, BVSW placed fourth with a total of 226 points and Blue Valley finished fifth with a total of 147 points.

In the 200 Yard Medley Relay, BVNW placed second, seventh and ninth. In the 200 Yard Freestyle, BVNW placed first, third, ninth and eleventh. In the 200 Yard IM, BVNW placed second and thirteenth. In the 50 Yard Freestyle, BVNW placed second, third and eighteenth. In the diving competition, BVNW placed third and sixth. In the 100 Yard Butterfly, BVNW placed first, second, seventh and tenth. In the 100 Yard Freestyle, BVNW placed second, eleventh and sixteenth. In the 500 Yard Freestyle, BVNW placed first and fourth. In the 200 Yard Freestyle Relay, BVNW placed first, eighth and thirteenth. In the 100 Yard Backstroke, BVNW placed second, eighth, tenth, twelfth and nineteenth. IN the 100 Yard Breaststroke, BVNW placed fifth, eleventh and thirteenth. In the 400 Yard Freestyle Relay, BVNW placed first and eighth.

“I think for our first meet of the year, it was pretty solid,” head coach Kyle Farrington said. “Some of the girls were expecting to be a little bit faster today because we’re trying new training. We’re all a little anxious and none of us are very good at being patient in terms of best times. But all things considered, I think it was pretty strong.”

Senior Hannah Musser, who placed first in every single event that she swam, said that she and the team were not sure how the team would do today.

“We knew this meet was going to be kind of a mystery,” Musser said. “I don’t think we knew exactly what was going to happen, but we had a lot of good results [in practice]. I think that gave us a lot of positive attitudes going into this meet, and using those positive attitudes helped us to have even better results.”According to Farrington, their new training involves cutting back on the amount of yardage they have swam previously in practice and is now more based on training at race pace.

“Some of the girls are struggling to deal with that a little bit because it is such a big shift,” Farrington said. “Many of our new girls did very very well [because] they don’t train in the off-season, and some of the girls that do train in the off-season felt a little bit strange today.”

According to Farrington, the name of the meet changed from the Blue Valley Invitational to the Greg House Invitational a few years ago in honor of Greg House, who was a swim coach at BVNW, BV and BVN and is the winningest coach in terms of state and EKL titles in EKL history, he said.

“A couple of years ago, he passed away due to lung cancer,” Farrington said. “He was a very inspirational guy, a very very talented coach and a good man….”

The best part of the swim meet, according to Farrington, was seeing the girls get together and get excited about their events.

“The other thing that I liked quite a bit was that a lot of the girls were feeling really impatient and weren’t happy with how they did today,” Farrington said. “And when we actually look at the times, it’s not so much that they’re times were bad, they were actually pretty solid for this time of year, it’s just that they were impatient and want to be faster now. I think that translates to harder work later. I think we’ve got a really great group of girls that are really ready to work really hard this season.”

Musser believes the relays were the best part of this meet, and every meet, because everyone tries their best and because they’re not just doing it for themselves, they’re doing it for their team as well.

“Swimming can sometimes be thought of as a very individual sport, but in relays, you really have to put the team on your back,” Musser said. “Everyone is working together and there’s a lot of collective energy put into it, so I always think they’re the most fun part.”

Farrington said that if the girls keep up the hard work, they will be difficult to defeat at EKL.

“As far as state is concerned, we’d like to be in the mix for the trophy, but there are a lot of strong programs out there and it is going to take a lot of hard work to get there,” Farrington said.

In order to be prepared to go far this season, Farrington said the girls must be able to get used to swimming when it is painful because with the type of training that they do, they need to be able to put in a number of repeats at a very fast pace, which he said is extremely difficult. They need to be able to push through the pain and support each other in their training, Farrington said.

“I think we still have some work to do right now, but for where we are right now at the first meet, I thought everyone was pretty happy with how [it ended],” Musser said.

Because the team has their first meet under their belts, Musser said that they now have data to go off of that will contribute to their training.

“Now we kind of have an idea of what it’s going to be like to compete with it and [have] a little bit more understanding of what we need to do to prepare,” Musser said. “I think [for] next meet we’ll be a little more prepared, or at least we’ll know what to expect and our bodies will be able to adjust a little bit easier.”

Musser said the team has big shoes to fill from last year because they won EKL and placed third at state. She also said that the team had an abundance of energy last year because it was enjoyable for them to swim well and work as a team.

“Since we did so well last year, we just need to maintain our energy, we need to stay focused and keep our eye on the prize,” Musser said.

The girls’ next meet is against Shawnee Mission South at BVNW at 4:00 P.M on April 1.