There’s a slight disadvantage the Indian Trail girls swim squad has been overcoming with style since 2014.
The “new,” beautiful high school, which is now the city’s largest in enrollment by far, actually doesn’t have a swimming pool.
OK, you can talk about “Just use Bradford’s” or take a bus or cars down to the Rec Plex all you want, but the semantics of having to travel every single day after school just to practice is at least cumbersome.
IT head coach Billy Gilbert says swim and dive isn’t huge in the Kenosha area, but he’s proud of what the Hawks have become.
Last weekend, the girls claimed their second consecutive Southeast Conference title, and their third in nine years.
Trail scored 651 points, only four ahead of Racine Unified’s 647, with Franklin taking third with 631.
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While Racine combines all three schools into one team, Tremper, Bradford and Indian Trail must all fend for themselves.
“The key was getting the girls to realize they could win, to fight for every point, and swim really fast,” Gilbert said about last weekend’s tournament.
Now, the stakes get much higher. Indian Trail wants to compete
- What is the historical significance? How many conference titles total and how many in recent years? Indian Trail has won Conference 3 times, 2014, 2021, and 2022. It’s a big deal for swimming in our area. Franklin, Oak Creek, and Case (now Racine Unified) have been winning the previous years. There isn’t a large swimming community in our area despite having the Rec Plex and the YMCA (both have club teams) close to all kenosha families. Also Indian Trail is the only school that does not have it’s own pool so that puts our team at a slight disadvantage compared to others. But despite these things IT has had exceptional swimmers and divers on its swim and dive team since 2014.
- What is the strength of the team? What individuals stand out? The strength of this team is that we have 12 really solid diverse and experienced swimmers and 3 really good divers. I can put the swimmers in any event, so making the best lineup is hard…We lost our best diver and two of our best swimmers last year so this year IT, Franklin, and Racine Unified were all very close. Last year we won by 50 points this year by only 4. Bella and Gianna Wulterkens swam really well for us Bella is a senior and got 2 really close 2nd places in the 200 and 500 and Gianna won both her races. Mia Svihl a sophmore placed 2nd in the 200 IM and 3rd in the 100 breast, Kaitlyn Anderson a junior place 3rd in the 200 IM and a really close 4th place in the 500 free and Ellie Palermo and junior placed 3rd in the 100 back. Our strength was that we just outswam the other teams that day. They just really swam outstanding, everyone cut, and cut lots of time.
- How strong is the conference? Covid has hurt our conference and swimming in general, it isn’t as strong as years past. Somehow, Franklin, RU, and IT are just very even this year. Although both Franklin and RU are double our swim team size.
- How good is this team, and what are goals moving forward? We lose three seniors Bella, Suzie, and Cate (a diver) but are gaining a very fast freshman next year, so moving forward it will be between the same three schools again next year. Oak Creek is starting to get better so they will be back in the mix in later years. But this teams goal is to win again next year and it could happen, and 3 in a row would be amazing and may never happen again for IT! Winning one is tough! We have a pocket in time where there isn’t a standout dominant team in our conference. So it was up for grabs for our team this year and will be next as well.
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