Fort Mill High swim teams celebrate double state championships
Cindy Van Buskirk knew her girls’ swim team would be strong again this year.
The 16-year Fort Mill swim coach saw her girls’ team win a state title last year, and despite graduating some talent, felt early on in the season that the team could repeat as state champion.
“After that first meet, it was like, ‘Okay, we are definitely solid, we are definitely contenders for a repeat state championship,’” Van Buskirk said. “By the end of the (regular) season, I knew that we had a very good shot because of the depth that showed in my team over the course of the season.”
Fort Mill entered the Oct. 14 state meet at the University of South Carolina as undefeated region champs, going a perfect 8-0 on the season.
The Yellow Jackets girls’ swim team won the first event of the meet, the 200-yard medley relay, with a time of 1:48.08 en route to its second-straight state championship.
Fort Mill girls swim team finished with 368.5 points, 86.5 points more than second place Chapin.
Josie Chandler, a junior who was a member of the meet-opening relay team, said that winning that first event lit a fire under the whole team. The Yellow Jackets team won another relay and had five top-5 finishers in solo events after the first event.
“I feel like everyone on the team is just motivating each other and always working hard because it’s not easy to win state,” Chandler said. “We were just so motivated, we never thought it was going to be easy to win again. We knew we had to work hard to get back there.”
Fort Mill’s depth was a big factor in its title run. The Yellow Jackets were able to have a team compete in every relay and put forward the maximum amount of swimmers allowed for each solo event. That increased their chances to earn points, and put them closer to the state trophy.
“It’s rare that a team is able to do that,” Van Buskirk said. “I knew we were pretty powerful going in, and when we stepped on that deck, the first event was the girls relay, and we won it, it was very exciting, electrifying. We were solid from beginning to end, and they have to bring it.”
“It’s one thing on paper and another thing to actually do it, and they really did do an outstanding job. The feeling of having repeat state champions after last year was the first time ever after coming in second nine times, they finally won their first state championship and then to repeat is pretty magical.”
Fort Mill boys recover
Fort Mill’s boys’ swim team had a much different cadence to its season.
The boys’ team went into last year’s state meet not expecting to make too much of a splash, but it placed second and was 15.5 points away from champion Wando.
That heartbreak forced the boys’ team to start this new season with a different attitude, a mindset Van Buskirk referred to as “a yellow jacket out of the ashes.”
“Everybody had been working their butts off throughout the offseason to really get to that level where we could win the state meet this year,” senior Owen Fey said. “We knew we had a chance. Our team was faster than it’s ever been before. Coach (Van Buskirk) kept talking about how it’s the fastest she’s had in 10 years. It was just really amazing to see, especially from that very first meet, how fast people’s times were compared to previous seasons. It was just really amazing to know that we had a chance, and if we just put in the work and the effort throughout the entire season from day one that we could do it. We could get there and finally win and kind of redeem ourselves from last year.”
And while the state meet started off well for the girls team, the exact opposite was true for the boys.
Fort Mill’s team in the 200-yard medley relay was disqualified after officials ruled the team’s second swimmer took off too early. It was a major blow for a team that was on pace to finish fourth in the event. That uphill climb motivated the team to give everything they’ve got in the pool.
“Everybody kind of realized it would have been easier, we weren’t really in that fight to win it, that grind set to really swim the fastest times that we could, that first really DQ was like a fire under us,” Fey said. “Everybody just absolutely locked in and realized that we had to do better than we ever had in the past to win the meet.”
Fort Mill mounted a furious comeback that included 11 top-10 finishers in individual events (including four in the 100-yard freestyle alone) and two top-five relay finishes.
After winning the final event of the meet, the boys’ 400-yard relay, Fort Mill was on top with 349.5 points, beating out Wando by 51.5 points.
“A lot of credit to the captains of the boys team and the seniors and the upperclassmen because they pulled everybody together and said, ‘alright, now we’ve got to do this together, or we won’t win,’” Van Buskirk said. “’Everybody’s got to do their very best. Everybody’s got to try and get in top 20. Touch the person next to you. You got to leave it all in the pool.’”
“They really just decided they wanted to win. And I give them all the credit in the world. I was there supporting, of course, and I’ve been there all season, but in the end, they’re the ones who have to dive in and swim.”