From guppies come sailfish. At least that’s what Lawrence High girls swim coach Hillary Hargraves-Dix is hoping. Oh, and for those who are not marine biologists, the sailfish is the world’s fastest.
In 2019-20 the Cardinals had a strong nucleus of freshmen, and their coach couldn’t help but dream of big things if they remained together for all four years of high school.
They have done just that, and Hargraves-Dix is hoping to reap the dividends and build on last season’s 8-4 record that included a win in the NJSIAA Group B quarterfinal.
The Cardinals return every swimmer from last year and, combined with incoming freshmen, have a 24-girl roster—the largest in Hargraves-Dix’s five seasons at the helm.
Leading the way are seniors Emerson Dalton, Riley Burns, Alexandra Cherry, Richa Sharma, Megan Simpson and Kate Sullivan.
“I’m so excited that this is their senior year,” Hargraves-Dix said. “We’re the biggest we’ve ever been, and they’re our leaders given the situation last year, when they had to lead because we didn’t have any seniors.”
She added: “Individually they’ve all grown so much. Freshman year they would never swim the breast, now they’re swimming the breast all the time. Riley was never a distance swimmer, now she loves the 400 free. It’s been cool to see them grow from freshmen to seniors. Now they have their own niche, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do in their final season.”
As are the swimmers themselves. Simpson feels her senior class has been a productive work in progress and have grown together.
“We’re really close,” she said. “I remember freshman year it was new for us, but going into that year we were kind of saying it was a building year, an adjustment for our team. We built off that throughout our career and this year we’re really strong.”
The results could be seen early this season, as Lawrence carried a 3-0 mark into its Dec. 16 meet with Hamilton; and had first place finishes in 27 of the 33 events that were held. Their closest win was by 22 points over West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North on opening day.
Leading the way is Dalton, who returns as the two-time recipient of Swimmer of the Meet at the Mercer County Championships. Dalton is the first female swimmer going to a Division 1 school under Hargraves-Dix, as she is committed to the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. Last year she swam a school and meet record of 4:23.49 in winning the 400 freestyle. The meet time broke an 11-year-old mark.
She also won the MCT 200 freestyle and owns the school standard in that event as well. In reaching the Meet of Champions, Emerson was seventh in the 400 and 11th in the 200.
“She’s been a super strong swimmer since she came on as a freshman,” Hargraves-Dix said. “She swims year round for a club team and is a very talented, consistent freestyler. She can pretty much go anywhere and is pretty great at any stroke. It’s fun to throw her into different events from time to time, but the place where she shines is definitely distance freestyle.”
Simpson has a strong relationship with Dalton, saying “she’s my best friend forever.” Meghan admires her BFF not just for her ability, but the way she handles herself.
“She’s the most humble person and the fastest swimmer I’ve ever known,” Simpson said. “I love to watch everything she does. She’s always smiling, and never acts like she’s extremely good.”
Simpson returns as a freestyle swimmer and is also good at creating chemistry.
“Megan is a really great leader,” Graves-Dix said. “She brings the team together with team spirit and that kind of stuff. She’ll do mid-freestyle and maybe a few other things.”
The gutsy Katie Sullivan is also back for a fourth season, as she continues to battle through shoulder issues with nary a complaint. “She’s a very hard worker and very diverse,” her coach said. “She can go in lots of different events, including some of the most grueling like the 200 IM and the 100 butterfly, which does contribute a little to her shoulder problems. But she’s really tough, and always fights through and does as much as she can.”
Alexandra Cherry is also a club swimmer who does mostly freestyle and some butterfly. “She’s kind of like Katie,” Hillgraves-Dix said. “She’s very versatile. I can throw her wherever. She’s super dedicated and focused and just kind of cruises through the water.”
Rounding out the Senior Six are distance freestyler Riley Burns and sprint freestyler Richa Sharma. Burns also does the 200 while Sharma can swim the breaststroke, and “both are very reliable,” according to their coach.
Aside from their individual skills, the best thing about the group is what they can do as a whole to help the rest of the squad.
“It’s huge, it makes such a difference,” Hargraves-Dix said. “From the start they wanted to do team bonding things—lunches and activities outside of the pool, which is nice. They lead by example. We always ask our seniors to do that but they do it pretty naturally. The underclassmen look up to them, and see how they behave and how hard they work and what it takes to be successful on the team.”
Those underclassmen include juniors Alex Murphy and Olivia Yuchmow. Yuchmow is truly versatile, able to do the 200 IM, 100 fly and some freestyle, while Murphy swims the 200 free and 100 back. Club swimmer Purba Karmaker is back for her second year with the Cardinals and “she looks way different than last year and has shown a lot of improvement already,” according to Hargraves-Dix. Karmaker is strong in the freestyle, butterfly and IM.
Providing even more depth to the mix are freshmen Liah Kibbey, Raina Lewis, Bisakha Basnet and Zoe Snellings.
“They all work really hard,” Hargraves-Dix said. “They’re on some club teams. They came in and were in shape, ready to go, ready to work. They show a lot of promise, and they will definitely soon be earning spots in the starting lineup.”
In looking at the overall picture, Lawrence is a team built for dual meet success. It has a number of versatile swimmers that Hargraves-Dix can mix and match depending on their opponent. Although they have just one true stud in Dalton, the coach feels they can also move up from last year’s seventh place MCT finish (tainted by a false start DQ) and get into the top five. She is also hoping for a strong run in states.
One of the main reasons for her optimism is that there is now competition amongst each other on the team, so everyone pushes one another.
“With so many girls there’s kind of this new edge where everybody knows they have to work for their spots in the lineup,” Hargraves-Dix said. “There are freshmen and sophomores working hard, some meets it will come down to ‘Who’s gonna win?’ and that’s who I have to put in. It’s definitely an added motivation for everyone to try their best with such a big team. It’s gonna be a puzzle putting it together. It’s a great problem.”
Entering the season, Simpson had a positive attitude but was not making any brash statements.
“Honestly, I have no expectations,” she said. “But I’m very confident in how we’re doing, I think we only have room to improve. Every day we’re growing and getting better. We’re working on all the little things. I think we’ll be tough competition for the other CVC teams for sure.
“I’d say one of our biggest strengths is depth. It’s great because we have a lot of numbers and a lot of different ranges and skills. We’re improving every day in practice and getting better. We can fill all those spots in the meet.”
The goal this year is to have all three swimmers gain points in each race they swim.
“No sixth places is our biggest goal,” Simpson said. “We want to get all the points we can in every meet. Everyone swimming in the pool matters, it doesn’t matter what lane we’re in.”
Hargraves-Dix agreed whole-heartedly.
“In swimming it’s so great to have stars but that can only carry you so far,” the coach said. “You really need depth on a team to consistently do well in dual meets. I’m so pumped to have so many girls to move around in different events. I hopefully see us getting not just first and second and then fifth and sixth, but taking the three and four places which will help us more as a team.”
A team that is loaded with young talent and blessed with six seniors who have been patiently waiting for this season to arrive.
LHS Senior swimmers Richa Sharma (left), Riley Burns, Megan Simpson, Emerson Dalton, Katie Sullivan and Alexandra Cherry. (Photo by Hillary Hargraves-Dix.),
