On February 11th and 12th, the Chesterton High School Girls swim team competed at IUPUI, taking on the State competition.  This competition had been anticipated to be incredibly difficult, however, the CHS girls were ready to take on the challenge.  After talking to four-time State qualifier, senior Alana Jardenil, the day before the State competition, the team had set a couple of goals that they wished to meet.  Jardenil shared that their top goal was to place within the top ten teams overall.  As anticipated, this goal was met when the girls took home a 10th place finish from the State competition with a total of 88 points, beating Homestead High School, who came in 11th, by only 7 points.  Carmel High School took the first place spot with a total score of 461 points, and followed by Fishers (283), Hamilton Southeastern (164), Concord (162), Zionsville (147), Penn (143), Caroll (123), Franklin Community (98), Northridge (94), and finally Chesterton rounding out the top ten.  

Before the team met their overall goal, they met their goal of placing in both of their qualified relays.  Just like their first goal, they continued to have an incredible show out as the 200 Medley Relay team of Jardenil, junior Olivia Piunti, sophomore Rachel Dildine, and senior Veronika Ozimek, made it into the A Final and placed 8th overall with a final time of 1:46.35.  In the 400 Freestyle Relay, Jardenil, Ozimek, Dildine, and Piunti fought for a 10th place finish with  a final time of 3:30:46.

Three of the four qualified swimmers, Ozimek, Dildine, and Jardenil, placed in their respective individual events. In the 200 Freestyle, Dildine, who finished with a time of 1:54.98, took her place in the B Final, earning 13th place. In the 200 Individual Medley, Jardenil finished 9th, just missing the A Final by only one placing, swam a time of 2:04.94.  Dildine finished 10th overall in the 100 Butterfly with a time of 56.46. In the 100 Freestyle, Ozimek placed 7th with a time of 51.54 after taking her spot in the A Final. Jardenil took 9th place in the 100 Breaststroke with a time of 1:04.06. Finally, in the 50 Freestyle, Ozimek finished in 8th place with a time of 23.73.  

This was Ozimek and Jardenil’s final swim competition of their high school career. Both have been able to accomplish a lot including each earning multiple Sectional champion titles and being four-time State qualifiers.  

“I am very content and happy with how I finished out my high school career. While there are areas I wish I would have done better this season, I can’t help but look back at the past 4 years and feel proud of everything I accomplished throughout my high school career!” shares Jardenil on her final competition of her career.  

When it comes to the future, Jardenil is currently undecided on where she wants to attend college, however she has decided to study a field of science, possibly Biology.  She currently does not have plans to swim with a university, however, she is considering swimming with a club.  Ozimek, on the other hand, has plans to attend University of Wyoming to continue both her swimming and academic career.  She will be reunited with former teammate and Chesterton alumni, Maisyn Klimczak, to become teammates once again.   

In some final comments on her career, Jardenil stated, “I’m really going to miss the people on the swim team and all the fun times we have together. I’ve made so many great memories with my teammates that I am so grateful for, and I’m going to miss making more in the future.”

The girl’s team is incredibly proud of their performance at the State competition and are happy with this impressive finish to their season.  Now they plan to cheer on their counterpart, the boys swim team, as they entered intense competition at the IHSAA Sectional competition, which was their 24th consecutive sectional title.  The boy’s team will finish their season on Saturday, February 26th, at IUPUI for the IHSAA State finals.