Reese Meckfessel

Junior Huy Duong swims a 50-meter butterfly at his first meet of the season. Duong’s speed helped the team take the victory at their first meet. The “butterfly” pictured is Duong’s second favorite stroke to swim.

This Tuesday, September 6th, the girls and boys had their first swim meet of the season. The swimmers had their opening meet at Hunter’s Green Athletic Center. Both girl and boy Seahawks were victorious against the Wiregrass Ranch High School Bulls. Junior Huy Duong was pleased to start the year off on a good note and help his teammates bring home a win. Duong has been a swimmer for “…about nine years competitively,” and “…in general about 13 years.” Thirteen years dedicated to one sport is a very significant amount of time, especially since Duong is only a junior in high school.

He has been swimming almost his entire life, and almost a decade competitively. When in the water, Duong’s “…favorite stroke is freestyle, for sure.” This is closely followed by butterfly, which is the stroke he was captured doing. The sport requires a lot of time for practices and meets, especially since Duong also swims for a club team outside of school. With this, however, comes the task of keeping up with sports, schoolwork, and friendships. This balancing act “…can be pretty difficult…” at times, but he does his best and lets himself take breaks whenever necessary. Luckily, many of his friends are on the team alongside him, so he is able to tackle two of these activities simultaneously. When not focusing on swimming itself, he can be involved with both friends and sports when attending team dinners and team bonding. When it comes to his future, Duong does not think he will swim at a professional or collegiate level, but also does not want to give up, so he plans to pursue “…the club swim team in college.” This way, he is still able to do the sport he loves and has dedicated much of his life to, without having to do it as such an extreme level.