It was a warm, sunny Saturday morning at Annville Cleona. The sun was beating down on everyone at the pool, swimmers, coaches, and spectators. It was All Stars for summer swimming. I swam two events earlier in the day. Now it was my final event, third to last of the day.

The girls’ fourteen and under 200 meter freestyle relay. Each of the four of us swam two laps, down and back. We worked extremely hard and hoped it would pay off. Our relay team was seated second and the first seat team was in the lane right next to us.

We were all really nervous, jumping up and down to warm up and taking deep breaths.

Brooklyn was up first. She stepped up to the block and we all held our breath.

“Swimmers take your mark,” the starting official said. There was a moment of silence, as the swimmers bent down, followed by a loud beep to start the race. The first swimmers dove in and the crowd cheered. Everyone was even at the turn then two lanes pulled ahead. One of them was ours.

Shannon was up next. She stepped onto the block, with the crowd still cheering. Right as Brooklyn hit the wall, Shannon dove in. One team was just a little ahead of us.

“Go Shannon!” we all screamed. I was jumping up and down and yelling as loud as I could. Shannon started falling behind. The first seat team was pulling ahead. As they got closer to finishing, we were getting farther and farther behind.

I was up next and as nervous as could be, not sure if we could still win. As I stepped onto the block, I took a deep breath. My arms were out in front of me, and I bounced three times.

As Shannon came in, the other team was already off. Shannon hit the wall, and I exploded off the block, pushing all the thoughts out of my head and only focusing on swimming.

When I came up to the surface, I was kicking as hard as I could. It felt like I was flying through the water. I was starting to catch up!

At the turn, I was closer. I flipped so fast, pushed off the wall immediately, and started kicking again. About halfway to the wall, we were finally even. I caught us up and nothing was going to stop us now.

My older sister, Hayley, dove in as I reached for the wall, stretching as much as I could. She was the fastest of the four of us. I hopped out of the pool and was out of breath. I tried to cheer, but was too tired.

During the first lap we were even. I was getting so excited. All the other teams were way behind. We were still even at the turn and on the way back. Hayley was swimming faster than I’ve ever seen her swim before.

Now everyone was really nervous. With about ten meters to go, Hayley pulled ahead the slightest bit. Now I was jumping up and down even though I was so tired.

Both swimmers came into the wall swimming as hard as they could. They touched the wall one after the other. I looked up at the scoreboard to see our time and our lane came up first. We won!

Cheers came from all over. We were so happy. People came to congratulate us and we shook hands with the other team.

As we were walking away, someone came up to me.

“You guys won because of you,” he said. I just smiled and thanked him. Even though that may have been true, we all worked our hardest and won as a team.