Senior Lillian Tabor was one of six girls to qualify for the swimming and diving high school state
championships this year.
Tabor began her swimming career when she was eight years old, when she joined the Washington Township Swim Club.
“I began swimming because my older sister was a swimmer and I wanted to be just like her,” Tabor said.
During the sectional championship meet a few weeks ago at Lawrence North, Tabor swam four events, qualifying for state in two.
To qualify for state, a swimmer must either place first in their event, or meet the high school state qualifying time.
Tabor swam both the 100 yard backstroke, and the 100 yard freestyle, placing second in both.
Along with that, she led off the 200 yard medley relay, swimming backstroke and swam as the third leg in the 400 yard freestyle relay, contributing to the girls first place finishes in both.
As one of the girls captains, she had a large impact on the team’s second consecutive sectional win, beating second place by almost 50 points.
Individually, Tabor helped contribute 34 points to the team’s 488 overall points, giving her the second highest amount of individual points.
“I am proud of how I did at sectionals, and I was so excited to be able to move onto the state meet,” Tabor said.
The turnaround from sectionals to state is only four days, which can feel very quick.
Throughout those four days, Tabor and the rest of the girls have to stay prepared both physically and mentally to be able to swim their best at the state preliminaries and the championship.
During both the championship meets, sectionals and state, one must place in the top 16 to qualify for finals.
During the preliminaries, she led off the 200 medley relay swimming backstroke, and helped to place 10th.
She also swam as the third leg on the 400 freestyle relay, helping the relay to place 12th in the freestyle relay, qualifying them for finals.
During the state championship meet at IU Indianapolis, Tabor helped contribute to the team’s 11th place win.
“I am very proud of how I did at state because I helped our relays get 10th and 12th at the meet, and the team as a whole performed super well throughout the season because we won County, MIC and Sectionals. Our team also had a record of 11-1 in the regular season,” Tabor said.
Tabor made many new friends and formed close relationships throughout her four years on the NC swim team.
“My favorite part of swimming is getting to swim alongside all my teammates and friends,” Tabor said.
