Tiger aquatics finish strong at State

AUSTIN — In its first year in Class 6A, the Dripping Springs High School Aquatics team of Athena Turner, Macie McCurry and sisters Anna and Laurel Hoskovec qualified to compete in the Girls 400 Freestyle Relay at the UIL State Swimming and Diving Championships, held in the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center. The road to state is long, beginning in mid-September with the Tiger Pentathlon and culminating on Saturday, Feb. 18 in Austin.

“Moving up to 6A has been pretty tough,” said assistant coach Andrea McCarthy, who has been coaching the swimming teams since 2005. The Tigers had a lot of success at the 5A level and some student athletes had concerns about how they’d do when moving up to 6A. Hard work and the will to succeed resulted in a third-place finish in district and provided the spring board needed for good swims at regionals to get to the state meet.

“This is a good group of girls who have all contributed, supported each other and continued to gel as a team to get to state,” head coach Michael Hoskovec said.

Turner, a senior, would load up in the starting block first, with sophomore McCurry taking off second and Anna Hoskovec third and freshman Laurel, coach Hoskovec’s youngest daughter, swimming the final leg of the 400.

“She was pumped,” the coach said, “so we put her at the end of the relay hoping the sheer adrenaline rush would be a push. She’s been dropping her times consistently so it has been fun to watch.” The team turned in a 3:33.23 in the preliminaries on Friday. It wasn’t good enough to hang with the top eight in the finals but enough to return to the pool on Saturday to swim in the Consolation heat.

Before swimming, the girls have a routine group huddle to psych each other up.

“I’m so proud; at the beginning of the season I wasn’t sure we’d make it,” Turner said after the team finished sixth on Saturday with a time of 3:33.26. “I was and then I wasn’t. District came and it was hard but we did really well. Regionals came and we had a little ups-a-daisy, pulled through it and here we are.”

Seeded 17th out of a field of 24, one of the team’s goals was to break the school record (3:33.35 and a 2018 5A State Champion team) and make it to the finals on day two and they did it. The gold medalist, Southlake Carroll’s winning time was 3:23.80.

The talent in 6A is obvious, but coach Hoskovec is confident this year’s team is a building block for the future. “Part of it is seeing the speed around you and knowing it can be done, setting your mind to it and putting the work in. We’ll miss the seniors, but these underclassmen now can see how fast the competition is, they’ll step up and rise to the occasion.”