Gena Jorgenson is heading into her final home meet as a member of the Aberdeen Swim Club, but you wouldn’t know it from talking to her. For Jorgenson, it’s just business as usual: swim fast, beat your last time.

That, essentially, is how Jorgenson has conducted the last 12 years of competition with the Stingrays, who host the annual High Point Swim Meet Friday through Sunday at the Aberdeen Aquatic Center.

“I’m excited,” Jorgenson said of the coming weekend. “I don’t think having this as my last season will hit me until the end of the summer.”

That’s when Jorgenson will call it wraps on the Hub City and turn her attention to the University of Nebraska, where she will join the Husker women’s program in Lincoln, Neb.

Which is not to say she’s pining the days away in Aberdeen.

“I’ve been swimming for 12 years with the Aberdeen Swim Club,” Jorgenson said. “They’re like my family. I know almost everyone on the team. … I don’t know how to put it into words, but I’ve definitely learned leadership and I’ve met so many people here. It’s just given me a place to go back to and take my mind off things. If I’m having a bad day, I can always go to practice and have fun there.”

In that decade-plus of in- and out-of-state competition, Jorgenson has created a legacy for herself with the Stingrays. She has qualified for multiple upper-level meets and carries an air of confidence with her in the pool.

But ask her how many state records she owns, and you’ll be met with a rare moment of uncertainty.

“For my age group, maybe three?” she said. Then paused. “I really don’t know for sure.”

For Jorgenson, swimming has little to do with any records but her own.

“I don’t really look at records,” she said. “I just look at my times and I just try to get my best times. If my best time is also a state record, I guess that’s cool. A lot of times I don’t know if I broke a record or not. It still feels good knowing you are the fastest one to do that event.”

Jorgenson pointed to two different swims that stick in her memory bank. Both were relay events involving heated competition with Sioux Falls.

“We’re so close,” she said. “many times it comes down to hundredths of a second.”

If it’s competition Jorgenson thrives on, she’ll find it in Nebraska. As Jorgenson caps her career with the Stingrays and transitions to life as a Husker, she knows she’s not done improving.

“I’m not going in at the top of the team,” she said. “I’ll be one of the slowest swimmers on the team, but I want to push myself.”

It’s that mentality that has pushed Jorgenson to be one of the top swimmers in South Dakota, even qualifying for the Junior Nationals in Austin, Texas last winter.

“There were Olympians at that meet and I got to warm up with them,” Jorgenson said. “I only went for one race. There were super fast people there. It was definitely scary and intimidating, but it was so much fun.”