The Swimmers of LHS
By Iris Krouse — Staff Writer
LHS junior Carlos Hidalgo and sophomore Will Parker have made our school proud with their accomplishments and victories in the water this season. Both athletes have improved their times drastically, while qualifying for District, State, and National playoffs in multiple events.
Hidalgo has been swimming ever since age 8 when he joined the YMCA swim team and decided to stick with it when his coaches saw potential in him. His years of dedication and extreme hard work have paid off in the successes he is seeing now.
One of Hidalgo’s accomplishments this year was placing second in the 50 yard freestyle in the District 3 3A boys swimming championship at Cumberland Valley High School on Friday March 4, 2022. Based on his performance swimming in Districts, Carlos quailified for the State meet, and later Nationals.
Hidalgo spoke about his personal favorite events and his hopes for improvement in those events. “My favorite events are the 50 and 100 freestyle, but I feel like I could always be faster because there’s always people out there who’s faster than me.”
Overall Carlos is proud of his performance this year and looks at it as a doorway to oppurtunities, explaining, “How I can build off my accomplishments is to get new best times and improve because I can always become faster.”
Sophomore Will Parker, who has been swimming for 11 years and plans to add many years onto that, has also made Lebanon proud by making it to the District, State, and National swim meets along with many other amazing performances in a number of other meets he competed in.
Will spoke about the growth he has seen this year in his swimming. “I have seen great improvement in all my strokes, my endurance, and even my social life.” Will described how swimming is an extremely physically painful sport and requires a lot of endurance and suffering at the level that he swims. He explained how people often bond over pain, therefore he gets to know his fellow swimmers very well and forms lifetime bonds with them.
Will went on to explain, “My biggest accomplishment this year was coming in 2nd in Lancaster Lebanon League with my best time in the 100 breaststroke, with a 57.35 — beating third place by .03.” Will swims year round and practices alomost every day. Will explained that if someone wants to be the best that they can in swiming, they need to practice consistantly to be sure they are constantly in shape for this extremely physically difficult sport.
But Will Parker is not finished pursuing excellence yet, explaining, “I think with all the high level competition I faced in the past few months, it will let me know how much I have to work to get better next time.”
Both Hildalgo and Parker finished their seasons by competing in the National swim meet and continue to work hard and get better with each day that goes by. Both swimmers will be returning next year and have grown astronomically. Be sure to congradulate the LHS swimmers on a great season and wish them luck for the future.
