This week’s notebook features swimmers from Neshaminy, North Penn and Upper Dublin.
National Conference
Shekhterman looking to finish strong – Neshaminy senior captain Helen Shekhterman is hoping this year will be her best.
“Swimming is a team sport, but it’s also an individualized sport and I’m hoping this year I’ll be able to accomplish some individual goals,” she said. “This year I’m targeting districts in the 200 freestyle. Getting there in the 500 free would be nice, but my big goal is the 200.”
Her high school career flew by.
“It’s so weird to be at the end,” she said. “I would sit at all our banquets and listen to the captains’ speech and they’d cry, and now I realize that this year I have to give that speech. My freshman year I thought it would take forever but it went by so fast.”
A career highlight came at last year’s conference championships, when she was part of a school record setting 200 freestyle relay along with Danielle Bizup, Rebecca Rodriguez and Elizabeth Miller. The foursome clocked in at 1:42.07.
“That was amazing,” she said. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
She takes her responsibilities as a captain very seriously.
“I want the younger swimmers to understand that the team matters and everything they do in the water matters,” she said. “We’re really working on the mental aspects of swimming and there’s a lot of potential here. This year our team is bigger and stronger and we have a lot of new girls who came from other team sports so they understand the team concept and that’s been great.”
Continental Conference
Baur and Maidens have high hopes - North Penn has long been noted for its extremely competitive aquatics program.
Junior Aimee Baur thinks this year will be no different.
“We all pull together and do our best to give it our all,” she said. “I feel really good about our team this year. We have a really great group. I’m impressed with our team spirit, and I think we’re going to be ready for whatever the season brings.”
The Maidens have their sights set on a conference championship and beyond.
“Of course we want to swim well at champs, but we definitely would like to go past that and send a lot of people to districts and then to states and hopefully place them well,” she said. “I feel like we’re off to a good start. We definitely have a target on our backs as we’re going out there but it gives us more of an incentive to do our best.”
As an upperclassman, she feels it is her time to take on a leadership role.
“I feel like I’ve watched the older kids swim and now it’s my turn to step up and that’s really exciting,” she said.
A veteran swimmer, she has been in the water for 12 years.
“I tried land sports, but they were not my thing,” she said. “I stuck with swimming and water polo all through high school and hopefully beyond that.”
Last year she was a District One Class AAA qualifier in the 100 and 200 freestyles and was on the district champion 200 and 400 freestyle relays. She then went to the state meet with the relays, earning a pair of bronze medals.
“I’m hoping to improve on last year’s finishes,” she said.
American Conference
Scherpbier looking to go out with a bang - For Upper Dublin’s Bart Scherpbier, last season was full of new experiences.
“I went to districts and states for the first time,” said Sherpbier, now a senior. “That was a great experience for me, and this year I definitely want to do that again.
“I was fortunate enough to be on the 200 freestyle relay, and just the camaraderie that you have that the big team is different than what you have with just that smaller team.
“You get closer and it was a great experience to be around those great swimmers. It really makes you want to work hard so that you can have more of a post season.”
The Cardinals made it to the consolation final of the 200 freestyle relay at states last year, finishing in 11th place.
This year Scherpbier is eying some individual events.
“I’m hoping to score some points in the 50 freestyle and maybe the 100 free,” he said. “Those are tough events, especially the 50 free. There’s very little margin for error and there are so many touch outs but I love those events. They’re so exciting.”
He’s been swimming since age five but spent some time doing other sports.
“I had some years off because I thought basketball and soccer were calling my name,” he said. “I had some years off from swimming but freshman year I got serious about it again and it was all worth it.
“I might be rowing in college, so this might be the end of the line for me and it’s just a weird feeling that I may never be able to do this again so I’m trying to make sure I go out with a bang.”
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