A series to share #smiles across our community through the achievements of our local youth, brought to you by Olsen Orthodontics.
(Lander, WY) – The Lander Valley High School Girls Swimming and Diving Team nabbed its second 3A state championship win in a row in Laramie this weekend, and as per custom/tradition, they celebrated with a Champion’s Parade on Lander’s Main Street, followed by the celebratory dip into the pool at the Bruce Gresly Aquatic Center.
County 10 also caught up with Head Coach Erik DeClue, who is now in his fourth year as Head Coach and has won three state titles in that time. He was quite impressed by the girls’ performance.
“These girls worked their butts off all year, and it really showed today,” DeClue beamed.
“Last year, we were going for some relay records and we missed the 400 free relay by like a second, and then this year in prelims we showed up, got the record,” DeClue said of some of the competition’s highlights. “We had all these girls that were freshmen and sophomores last year that might have barely qualified, and they were making finals and consoles in both of their events, and everybody just improved so much this year.”
“All of our mid-level swimmers that started off the year just barely qualifying — at state, those were the ones that really showed how hard they worked,” DeClue continued. “Everybody shows up to state hoping for a good taper and all the teams put everything into it, and this year, all of those girls on our team were just lights out; all of them took so much time off and moved up so many places.
Looking ahead, DeClue says he team will “start having some more competition in the next two years,”
“(It’s) really exciting. A lot of the girls around the state have swam with these girls growing up, and you can see that they’re all getting so much faster. So the next two years are going to be really fun.”
“Some of these girls that barely qualified their first year and stepped up their second year — next year they’ve got chances at All-State,” DeClue added. “We’ve got a few of them knocking on some more school records. This year, we got four more school records broken and another state record, so that was nice. We’ve got a few more to go, but we’re getting there.”
“These seniors were our freshmen the first year. Honestly, they were the ones who took Greg (assistant coach Greg Anderson) and me to heart when we first started — how we wanted them to train and the work ethic — and they’ve been the ones who’ve represented it and shown it to the team. We’re going to miss the hell out of them, but they set the foundation and the work ethic, and it’s been awesome to see it grow into the culture.”
h/t Vince Tropea, County 10