Aberdeen Swim Club member Kiera Haugen has been a part of many of the High Point Indoor Swim Meets such as the one that is taking place at the Aberdeen Family Y this weekend. However, this one is bit more special for the 18-year-old, because it’s her final one.

“It feels like the same meet. People keep coming up to me saying, ‘Oh it’s your last meet,’ and giving me congratulations. It hasn’t really hit me, yet,” Haugen said. “I’m just here enjoying it, until the wave of ‘it’s officially over,’ officially hits me.”

Haugen has been swimming her whole life, even getting a head start on the sport as a young girl.

“I have two older siblings and they started swimming, so growing up I saw them swim. I begged my mom to have me start early, so I started a year earlier than everyone did,” Haugen said. “I’ve always been doing swim meets with my siblings, and I’ve made so many friends along the way. I love swimming. I had to stay in it.”

Haugen is also a member of the show choir at Aberdeen Central. She said swimming plays a role in that activity.

“The endurance really helps, because you’re performing for 20 minutes straight, dancing,” Haugen said, “so the conditioning that I do at swimming really helps me stay active in everything I do, in general.”

Haugen plans on attending North Dakota State University next fall and won’t be involved in swimming, at least not as a member on an organized team.

“I want to stay with the pool even though it won’t be the same,” she said, “but I love just swimming in general, so I might make my coach email me a few practices, just to keep in shape.”

Haugen is already looking ahead to February when the state indoor swim meet takes place in Sioux Falls on the same day that the Central show choir performs in the state’s largest city. Since it will be a state meet, Haugen will swim and then support the show choir when she has a break.

“My (show choir) teacher knows, and she’s wishing me luck, she wants me to do well with my state,” Haugen said, “so I’ll swim prelims, I’ll go watch them perform, then I’ll go swim finals. It’ll be great.”

BAUMBERGER ALWAYS ON THE MOVE

A decorated distance runner was making his presence felt in the pool on Saturday morning.

Miller’s Pierce Baumberger, who is multi-time state place winner in both cross country and track and field, also enjoys longer races in the water.

Baumberger competes for the Riptide team which includes swimmers from Huron and Mitchell.

“I drive 45 minutes Monday through Friday to go to Huron,” Baumberger said, noting that Miller does not have an indoor pool.

When asked what his favorite sport is, Baumberger responded “I’d say swimming, because it’s a lot less strenuous on my body and I think the community here that I’ve built is just something else.”

Baumberger also swims for Riptide in the summer months as well.

He said his running friends in Miller have enjoyed getting to know his swimming buddies from other communities.

“They love meeting all the people that I see from swim at cross country and track,” Baumberger said. “They love being introduced to all the other people.”

Baumberger plans to go into nursing next year at South Dakota State University so that will mark the end of his organized running and swimming days.

“I’m going to run and swim on my own time, just to keep in shape, keep that fitness, but competitively, I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe the occasional 5K.”

While he will miss it, he is also looking forward to it.

It’s going to feel pretty nice just to do it on my own time,” Baumberger said, “and have my own kind of schedule.”

KARST HAS OWN MOTIVATIONAL ROUTINE

While swimmers do a variety of things like slapping themselves before races to get motivated and get the blood pumping before they jump in the pool, Aberdeen Swim Club member Lula Karst has her own little routine that gets her going.

“I like to do a head, shoulders, knees and toes dance,” Karst said. “It just gets me excited. Me and Annie Bindenagel do that sometimes.”

When Karst finished a race Saturday morning, she immediately looked at the scoreboard clock to see what her time was.

“Our new coach has us focus on one thing every meet. Today it was underwaters and walls,” Karst said. “I was hoping that it would have done something with my time, because my underwaters and walls are not great right now. I’ve been working hard in practice.”

The 14-year-old explained how underwaters can impact a race.

“For shorter races you should be underwater less, but they need to be super strong,” Karst said, “but for distance races, you need to have longer underwaters.”

Karst said she has found the perfect distance and stroke for her style.

“I love the 200 back so much,” Karst said. “I’m a distance swimmer, but I’m a good sprinter, too, and I feel like the 200 back is just like a perfect race for me. It’s a good distance and back is my best stroke.”

CARRYING ON THE FAMILY LEGACY

Ben Jorgenson is the final swimmer in a family of notable competitors. His sister, Gena, is a standout swimmer at the University of Nebraska, and his brother, Andrew, just finished his stint with the Stingrays.

“It’s super cool,” Jorgenson said of growing up in a swimming family. “A lot of fun, always seeing everyone swim.”

He said his older siblings have had a major impact on him in the pool.

“They’ve helped me tremendously throughout my swimming,” Jorgenson said.

He did note that there is a certain sort of pressure he feels following in their footsteps.

“Yeah, just a little bit,” he said, “trying to live up to their standards.”

On Saturday morning, Jorgenson jumped into the pool for his race and was the last participant to poke his head up out of the water to take a breath. It’s a style that works for him.

“I just feel like going underwater’s the fastest way,” Jorgenson said, “because there wouldn’t be a rule on coming up if it wasn’t.”

The unique start is something that has just become routine for the 16-year-old.

“That’s just what I’ve been doing forever,” he said. “It helps me off the start.”

Jorgenson said there’s a big difference between swimming indoors and outdoors.

“It’s just a lot longer outdoors, because outdoors it’s meters, indoors it’s yards,” he said, “and there’s less walls to go underwater, so it’s just more energy above the water.”

FROM THE VOLLEYBALL COURT TO THE POOL

A familiar figure from the Warner volleyball team was in the pool competing for the Aberdeen Stingrays on Saturday.

Libby Scepaniak, who was a key member of this year’s Class B state runner-up Monarchs, is also an important member of the swim club.

The 18-year-old said there is less pressure involved in swimming compared to volleyball.

“I feel like with volleyball you kind of do have a little bit more pressure,” Scepaniak said, “because what you do affects the rest of the team, and then in swimming, it’s just you, and you get to swim your races.”

While the atmosphere at the state volleyball tournament can be loud and exciting, Scepaniak said the same thing holds true in swimming.

“Sometimes it is hard hear when you are swimming,” Scepaniak said, “but I think it can bring just as much cheering, especially in close races, like relays at state are pretty intense.”

Relay races bring out the same kind of teamwork that Scepaniak experiences in volleyball.

“I do enjoy relays, because you get swim with your team and work together,” she said, “kind of like in volleyball, so I think relays are really fun.”

This year will mark the final year of competition in the pool for Scepaniak. She said it is something she will miss.

“It’s definitely going to be different not going to practice,” she said, “because I probably won’t see most of these people again, so it’s kind of sad.”