The 2016-17 swimming season is Hastings High’s second year of having a cooperative swim team between two other high schools in town, Adams Central and St. Cecilia.
This swim season, a 25-year-old Hastings High swimming record was broken by Morgan Baker, a freshman from Adams Central. Baker now holds the Hastings High school record in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:23.25.
Baker also holds a Hastings High record in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:58.94.
“Her name will be on the school record board. She is a part of our team,” Activities Director Tracy Douglas said.
While Douglas thinks Baker deserves to hold the HHS records, her record holdings has received a mixed reaction from students at Hastings High.
“I don’t think that it’s right for someone from a different school to hold our school record. If they want to play our sports and break our records, then they should go to our school,” junior Thomas Kerr said.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it. I just thought it was weird to see the Hastings High twitter account tweet that she broke our record,” junior Bryant Warrick said.
Senior swimmer Shyann Chitty has a different perspective “The swimmers are all a part of the Hastings Tiger swim team, so they have the right to break Hastings Tiger swim records. I, being a senior and not breaking a record yet, am beyond happy for those breaking records,” Chitty said.
Chitty feels that students who don’t agree with the co-op swimming records are being unfair.
“If you were a part of a team, worked your hardest every day at practice with that team, and made an effort to be as good as you can, wouldn’t you want to be rewarded for your accomplishments?” Chitty said.
Chitty thinks co-op swimming has vastly improved the Hastings High swim team relays.
“Without the co-op, we did not have enough girls for one relay to take to state, let alone compete in meets. Now with the co-op, we have enough girls to take two relays to state and I think that is an amazing thing for our swim team.
According to Chitty, not only is the co-op helping the team’s ability to compete, but also the team’s ability to win.
“Another thing that has been good with the co-op is that we are winning more meets, placing higher at competitive meets, and taking more kids to state than we have in a long time!” Chitty said.
Despite controversies by students there is not any discussion of co-op swimming ending.
