SHS girls swim prepares to defend state title, boys ready to grab one of their own

SANDPOINT — It’s amazing how much talent fills the Litehouse YMCA pool on a daily basis.

State champions from the Sandpoint swim team can be seen everywhere and they are all training to get even better because they are never satisfied.

Last season, the girls team finally broke through after three straight runner-up finishes to secure a state title while the boys captured fourth for the third consecutive year.

Meets this fall will look different for the Bulldogs due to the coronavirus. Instead of going to events with a large number of schools, SHS will compete in duals with only a couple schools to limit large gatherings. Sandpoint also has no home meets.

Head coach Greg Jackson currently has 29 swimmers on the team and with the talent the Bulldogs are bringing back, a state title sweep could be within reach.

Girls try to avoid letdown, build for future

The hardest part about being a champion is defending your title and trying to avoid complacency. The girls team will battle that problem this fall, but Jackson said the Bulldogs know they will face opposition on their path to repeating.

“With Bishop Kelly out there, I think we’re always going to be really mindful of the competition that we have at the state level,” he said.

Sandpoint returns eight of the 10 swimmers that went to state last season but they suffered two key losses in Laila Black and Mikayla Schoening, who both graduated.

Schoening was a two-time state champion in the 100 freestyle and Black was a huge contributor for the Bulldogs. Jackson said they will need to fill those holes in their team.

“We had some very healthy depth last year and losing Mikayla and Lulu that’s going to be tough,” he said.

Luckily, Sandpoint has five seniors they can lean on including four that competed at state in 2019. Those four are Autumn Morgan, Kate Bokowy, Kaya Wright and Sabrina Wilson.

Bokowy had co-captain duties last year but has earned the title of sole captain on the girls side this season.

“I think she’s going to lead both in and out of the water and I’m really excited for her to have that spot,” Jackson said about Bokowy.

To limit exposure with one another and ensure proper social distancing, Jackson has split up practices so half the team is in the pool while the other half is out of the water doing workouts.

Bokowy said that separation has made it tough especially because she wanted to plan some team bonding activities.

“I kind of feel like I’m not getting to know half of the team,” she said.

Fortunately, a lot of the swimmers on the girls side are veterans that Bokowy is familiar with.

Many of the Bulldogs compete on the Sandpoint Sharks club swim team as well. The Sharks season runs through most of the high school offseason, but this year the season was cut short in mid-March due to COVID-19. For swimmers like Bokowy who are in the pool year-round, being away from the water for several months was very odd. Bokowy said she tried her best to keep everyone engaged when they were forced to be away from one another, but it was quite the challenge.

Morgan admitted it was difficult to stay motivated when at times it looked like they may not even have a fall season.

“It was pretty hard to want to work hard still,” Morgan said, “but thinking about last year and everything that happened, I just have to keep the faith that we can do it again and it will work out.”

With the amount of time they had out of the water, Bokowy said the team knows they are going to have to grind over the next couple weeks to ensure they didn’t lose a step from last season.

“We’re just going to have to work harder this year to get back to where we were,” she said.

Morgan and Bokowy were both members of the 200 medley and 400 free relays teams that claimed state titles last year. The duo wants to defend those titles if the opportunity presents itself, but they both want to focus less on results this season.

“Personally, I want to focus a little less on winning,” Morgan said, “and focus more on encouraging the younger swimmers and making more connections with people on the team.”

Bokowy said she paid too much attention to times last season and wants to hone in on mastering her technique so she can swim for years to come.

“I’m nervous that when I’m old and swimming that I’m going to lose my technique and I’m going to be one of those people that the lifeguards watch and go, ‘Oh, they are not a swimmer,’” she joked.

Besides having a stellar senior class, Jackson is excited about the potential of his four sophomores: Emily Ballard, McKinley Jensen, Ayiana Prevost and Maren Davidson.

Ballard, Jensen and Prevost all competed at state as freshmen last season while Davidson traveled down to Boise with the team as an alternate.

“All of them are hungry,” Jackson said. “They want to do better at state.”

Jackson said that group didn’t expect to have the opportunity to compete at state last year, but they helped the Bulldogs claim district titles and scored plenty of points to help push the team to a title in Boise.

Jackson said this sophomore class has a very bright future.

“In addition to their athletic capabilities, I think it’s really neat that those four have a very special bond and it really revolves around swimming,” he said.

Morgan won’t ever forget what it felt like to win state and she said that feeling is pushing her this season.

Bokowy said she is looking forward to the season, but doesn’t want to get ahead of herself.

“I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high because I know that it could be canceled at any point,” she said.

Morgan shared a similar sentiment and said she is grateful they are even competing at all this fall.

“During this summer, I kind of lost touch with a lot of my teammates and until I came back to practice I didn’t realize how much I missed it and how much I missed everyone,” Morgan said.

This could be the strongest boys team in years

When the Litehouse YMCA reopened its pool in late May, senior Hayden Norling was one of the first people to reserve a lane.

The boys team captain leads a Bulldogs squad that lost no one from last year’s team. In 2019, Sandpoint had six boys compete at state — Norling, his younger brother, Caleb, Hayden Leavitt, Jake Aitken, Aidan Nielsen and Jack Grzincic.

“Those six, they can do a lot of damage,” Jackson said.

The boys team improved over the offseason and Jackson expects them to be faster across the board,

“They are very strong athletes that are very dedicated,” he said about the boys, “and they didn’t just quit working after our season last year, they’ve been working very hard since.”

Nielsen returns after grabbing the state title in the 100 fly as a sophomore. Nielsen said he was blown away when he realized he won the event and was caught off guard by how much time he dropped. Nielsen plans on defending his title if given the chance.

Norling was also the team captain last season, but this year’s experience has been quite different. Norling managed to keep the boys focused over the past couple months and he believes the uncertainty surrounding the season could bring them closer together.

Nielsen missed being around his “brothers and sisters” during the offseason, but he got right back in the swing of things when practices opened up last week.

“[Jackson]’s been working us really hard so far,” Nielsen said, “and I’ve been feeling really good and my times are keeping up with what I usually get in the pool.”

Nielsen also competed in the 50 free and the 200 free and 200 medley relays at state last season. Short distance is clearly Nielsen’s strength and he’s just fine with that.

“I’m not a distance swimmer,” he said. “I’ll take all the sprints while I can.”

Jackson said Norling has been putting a lot of effort into his leadership and keeping team morale up, and it’s shown.

Norling swam the 200 and 500 free last season and also competed on a pair of relays. He said the 200 free is his favorite event because it’s right in his sweet spot.

Norling said the Bulldogs have plenty of motivation this season.

“I think everybody knows that this year is going to be the fastest year the boys team is going to have in like a decade,” Norling said.

Last season, Sandpoint finished second to Moscow at districts. But this year the Bears aren’t participating in fall sports and several state contenders lost key seniors. These factors and the team’s potential has Jackson and the boys believing that they have a great shot at bringing home a state title this season.

The only problem is the coronavirus could derail those hopes and prevent the boys team from reaching their full potential. If that happened, Norling said it would be frustrating, but that’s life.

“You can’t really do anything about it, so you just got to focus on what you can do and make sure you give it your best,” he said.

If getting a bunch of schools together for a state meet isn’t possible, the idea of teams competing in their home pools and sending in times has been floated around.

Nielsen said that type of meet wouldn’t provide reliable results.

“Any swimmer will tell you that we need to have that competition beside us,” he said.

Nielsen said the Litehouse YMCA has become his second home over the years and he can’t wait for the first meet. Norling just wants to have a memorable final season.

“It’s going to be weird not swimming anymore and kind of a bummer, but I feel like taking state would be the best way to end it,” Norling said.

Sandpoint swim opens the season at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12 against a pair of opponents at the Kroc Center.