Bert, the stuffed gator that the girls’ swimming team carries around for go green week, is an inspirational message to improve every race time. Go green week, which is the week of regionals and state, signifies that it is ‘go time.’ Bert, and the girls, ended up having 38 best time drops at regionals out of the 40 competing. This resulted in 12 state qualifiers and four new school records being set.

The first place in every regionals race goes to state, and then to fill the remaining spots, the scores of every regionals time around the state are put together and the top 24 times go to state.

Overall, Johnston won its regional meet with a score of 498. “If you took the entry times from all the teams and the entry times from our team, on paper we would win by three and a half points, and we won by 82 points,” girls’ swim coach Shari Walling said.

The qualifiers for state began with the first race of the day, the 200 medley, whose team includes juniors Mallorie Myers and Abby Foutch and sophomores Lexie Winnett and Lexi Horner. They not only qualified for state but also set a new school record in the process.

In the 200 freestyle, DCG junior Natalie Lammers won the event and junior Brenna Yeutsy finished in fourth, allowing both of them to qualify for state.

The 200 individual medley came next, with Horner coming in first with a school record, freshman Kendall Hostetler recieving second and DCG freshman Angela Cary finished fourth, allowing all three girls to qualify for state. In the 50 freestyle, sophomore Olivia White finished fourth and qualfied for state.

In the 100 butterfly, Horner won the event with a school record and Winnett came in a close second, allowing both of those girls to qualifiy. Shortly after, in the 100 freestyle, White finished second and senior Shayla Warrick finished third, resulting in qualifications for both of them. In the 500 freestyle, Lammers won first and Myers finished second, giving both girls a bid to state.

In the 200 freestyle relay, the team of White, Foutch, Warrick and Winnett finished second with a new school record, as well as qualifying for state. In the 100 backstroke, Myers finished second and Cary finished third, resulting in both qualifying. In the 100 breaststroke, Winnett finished second and Hostetler finished fifth, having both to go to state. In the 400 freestyle relay, the team of White, Cary, Warrick and Horner won the event and also qualified for state.

This week the girls continue to prepare for state. “We are working hard through [Wednesday], and then we’ll rest Thursday and Friday to be ready for the meet to have a little more taper,” Walling said.

The team hopes that mental preparation, along with their continuing physical preparation, will pay off at state. “This week I need to practice hard and make sure I don’t have any doubts because they could mess with my mind and I might not do as well,” Horner said.