Sartell Sabre swimmers make the city proud

Hats off to the Sartell Sabres girls’ swim team.
The team scored a second-place win in last weekend’s Class A championship meet at the Aquatic Center in Minneapolis.
The Sartell Sabres girls’ swim team were Class A state champions last year and in 2009.
Just because they didn’t get top honors this year makes them no less “champs.” They gave that state meet their all, exerting themselves like pros, both as individuals and as a team. They made Sartell proud.
It’s often said sports, at their best, are all about teamwork. That is one of the life-lasting lessons athletics teaches in high school: team work. Every girl on that swim team has said without teamwork, their winning streak could not have happened. And that is not false modesty; it’s true.
Just one example of that is Sabres swimmer Ellen Bloom. She told the Newsleader a day after the event that she’d been under intense pressure as the last swimmer on her relay team for the 400-yard freestyle event. By the time Bloom was ready to dive into the pool, the Visitation High School team was just a point ahead for second place, behind Northfield. Bloom saved the day, beating Visitation in that race by 2.16 seconds and earning the Sabres the second-place trophy for the weekend.
As exhausting as that swim was, Bloom forged ahead with grit and determination, and with every stroke she felt energized by her teammates and the fans cheering her and the team on through all of the two days of competition.
“I heard them cheer before it was my turn,” Bloom told the Newsleader, “but once in the water, I knew what I was doing. I didn’t hear anything, but I knew the whole team was there behind me . . .”
All the Sabre swimmers can tell you the foundations of teamwork are hard work, moral support, mutual dependency and a deeply caring camaraderie. Anybody who sees those girls together could mistake them all for sisters in a very, very close-knit family. That camaraderie and team spirit shines through every task they undertake and every lap they swim.
We salute the Sabres on all of their seasonal accomplishments. They are definitely some of Sartell’s very finest.