Considering that she grew up wanting to be a mermaid and finds varsity swimming to be a fun aspect of her life, it would stand to reason that if Isabelle Stoldt joined any branch of the service, it would be the Navy.
But the Robbinsville High senior actually spurned Annapolis for West Point, which is where she will enroll next year.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do (career-wise) until my freshman year when someone told me about the Naval Academy,” Stoldt said. “I visited there first, but it wasn’t until I went to West Point that I found the place I wanted to go to. The people there had such a strong sense of discipline and self security. They were really great people and when I was there I realized I wanted to be there because those are the people I wanted to be like. Those were the people that inspired me.”
Much like Stoldt inspires the Ravens swim team as a senior captain. Despite not being a club swimmer and not coming out for the team until last year, Isabelle has quickly become a team leader.
“I’m super excited to have her as one of the captains to just keep up the positive morale we had last year,” coach Annie Menninger said. “She is an all-around great leader. She really encourages all the other swimmers and does a good job with cheering and motivating. We had a really great season last year, both boys and girls. I’m hoping that under her leadership we can keep that energy going as well.”
Stoldt decided to try swimming as a junior because she heard good things about the team members. Once she arrived, she noticed that several club swimmers could not make every high school practice due to their club practices, so she became a natural leader despite her lack of experience. It provided a pretty good inkling that she can be the kind of officer West Point strives to produce.
“We had great captains but they just weren’t always there,” she said. “So I was generally the fastest person in the pool when I was there because the club swimmers were gone. That really gave me an opportunity to kind of see and lead some of the swimmers and have the experience of being a leading figure even though I wasn’t a captain. But I definitely looked up to the captains when they were there.”
That is the perfect attitude for an officer’s candidate. Lead when necessary but also follow your superiors. In the midst of all that, Stoldt showed that she is also a pretty good swimmer by taking part in 11 first-place relay teams, winning a 50 meter race and finishing either second or third a combined eight times in the 50 free, 500 free, individual medley, 100 free or 100 breast.
Not bad for a first-year varsity swimmer. Then again, Stoldt always had a little fish in her blood.
“I always loved the water,” she said. “My parents were more scared of it than I was. I would always run toward water even when I didn’t know how to swim so I almost drowned a few times. I just thought it was fun. I grew up on those cheesy mermaid TV shows, they were my childhood cartoons. So I always wanted to swim because I wanted to be a mermaid.”
Even after realizing she would never grow a tail, Isabelle began getting swim lessons and started swimming for the Robert Wood Johnson Hammerheads at age 8.
“I learned how to float and swim around age five,” she said. “It was a pretty natural movement for me.”
Stoldt went on to Hamilton Aquatics, but quit in the seventh grade due to a new interest.
“I actually found wrestling and I liked wrestling more, ‘’ she said. “I wrestled for Pond Road and that was awesome. I was the first girl to ever be on the team. It was a cool experience with how nice everyone was. People really encouraged conditioning and hard work and that really helped me a lot.”
Isabelle continues to maintain that work ethic. While no longer wrestling competitively, she still does some practice sessions to keep in shape, along with year-round training in Jiu-Jitsu and American Martial Arts. She is also on the Ravens track & field team; in the Civics Club; plays piccolo and flute in the RHS concert band; and has a 4.5 grade point average.
And while swimming is not a year-round thing for Stoldt, her coach is happy to have the versatile performer on the team. Although the Ravens dropped their opening meets this season against three of the CVC’s top teams – Notre Dame, West Windsor-Plainsboro South and Princeton – Stoldt had three individual second-place finishes and a first and a second in relays. She also picked up points in three other races.
“She definitely gives us a lot of depth,” Menninger said. “I’m really hoping that she’ll step up a little bit this year and be in our top three in dual meets. I’d love to see her make it back for an A final at counties. I think that would be the end term goal.”
Stoldt’s own goals are a bit more intangible. She is not seeking numerical figures such as times or places for herself, but rather the big picture.
“I kind of want to start some new traditions,” she said. “We’re so young of a team we don’t really have that many traditions that we do on a yearly basis. So I’m trying to bring some traditions we did in marching band, like team bonding kinds of things. We’ll go to a restaurant and get breakfast or lunch, or we’ll do a dryland workout. I’m just trying to find time to get together after practice. That means a lot to me.”
Asked if there is anything she would like to strive for individually, Stoldt said “I want to work on becoming a more diverse swimmer and work more in the IM and hopefully get my freestyle time down a little bit. I do this for fun and want to do
the best for my team but it’s not something I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself for.”
The fact that Stoldt does not focus immense attention on swimming makes what she does even more remarkable according to Menninger. Her ability to succeed in the pool comes from an all-around conditioning lifestyle.
During a preseason workout, the coach noted that “With swimming they say the rule of thumb is for every day you’re out of water it takes you two days to get back into the shape you were in when you left. For someone to be out of the water from February to November, it takes a really long time to get back into shape and I’m already seeing she’s getting the times she was getting at the end of last year.
“She definitely has a strong work effort,” Menninger continued. “She’s always either leading her lane or up there during practices. She never skips out on anything. She does every step to the best of her ability.”
If that doesn’t sound like officer material, nothing does. It perfectly sums up what
Stoldt is all about, and she is ready to serve America with that attitude.
“It’s just paying back the debt I have to my country,” she said of attending West Point. “I’ve always been taught I was so lucky to be here. I knew I was called to join the army and make a difference. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I had such a hard time picking a career for myself. I like doing everything but I knew I wanted to do something that would make a difference and support my values and it’s just paying back the debt I owe.”
But when it comes to her contributions to the Ravens swim team, her debt is pretty much paid in full.
Isabelle Stoldt will be attending West Point after she graduates this year.,
