Foundation Academy swimmers swim with purpose

Before the crack of dawn, Isabelle Bower and Anjali Sam find themselves already neck deep in the pool.

It’s 6 a.m. Monday morning at SouthWest Aquatics in Winter Garden, and the girls — alongside their teammates — already have been at it for about an hour.

While fellow classmates sleep, the newly formed Foundation Academy swim team is putting in work. And although the team is happy to be a part of something historic, the early morning can be difficult.

“The first week we start practicing by 10 o’clock … and then by the second week — when it switched to about 5 in the morning — it was kind of tiring, because I’m not a morning person,” Bower said with a laugh. “But it’s pretty fun and it actually helps my day better, too — that I’m already awake and I’ve been active in the morning instead of waking up right away and going to school.”

Asking high school students to get up and be physical before having to even go to school is a lot, and that’s not lost on Head Coach Chad Sundermeyer.

If anything, though, it shows the level of dedication that the newcomers on his team have to get better and represent the school well, he said.

“These kids are getting up early consistently and working hard early in the morning before school, so I’m really impressed with their commitment and hard work so far,” Sundermeyer said. “And I’d say 90% of the kids have never swam on a team before, so to jump in to something like that, both for them and … their families too — who have to drive them there.”

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

Each member of the swim team has his or her own story of how he or she wound up swimming for Foundation. Sam and Bower’s story is intertwined.

Both came into this new adventure with little to no training in competitive swimming, but it was Bower who was the driving force behind the two joining the team.

“Isabelle got me encouraged, because she babysat for our coach’s kid and so she knew him, and then we found out that he was coaching the swim team,” Sam said. “She wanted to join it, but she said she wouldn’t join it unless I did.”

When practices started up in early August, everything was — for the most part — new to the girls and two boys (Gabriel Carr and Quin Sundermeyer).

They worked their way through the different strokes — learning proper technique for each — and learned how to come together as a team, which ended up being fairly easy since the team was so small. 

By the first meet at Mount Dora Tuesday, Sept. 10, the Lions were as ready as they could be.

“I was excited, because I kind of knew what to expect going off my past experiences, but even some of the kids who swam before were nervous because they were representing their school,” Sundermeyer said.

If the girls who have swam before were nervous, then it’s no surprise that Bower and Sam were feeling the same way. 

“When we got there, I was super nervous because I get really bad nerves — I’m not used to being in front of people,” Bower said. “And then it was also super hot outside, so I was kind of scared that I would pass out or something because there were a lot of people, it was hot and the water was hot. But then once I actually did it, it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.”

Meanwhile, for Sam, the moment was a surreal one — even before hitting the water. Prior to the race, one of the parents got everyone together for a team photo before saying how historic of a moment it was for the school.

Although Sam grasped the importance of what was happening, once she took to the starting block that was the last thing she was thinking about.

“Honestly, I think of what my coach tells me to think of,” Sam said. “I don’t really think of, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the first swim meet or whatever,’ I usually think of, ‘OK, I have to keep my chin down so I don’t bellyflop in the pool and I have to do this while swimming, so I don’t lose speed.’”

Both the girls and boys would fall to Taveras and Mount Dora in the tri-meet, but the Lions wouldn’t finish empty-handed. Katie Hoenstine took first place in the 100 fly, while Emma Sundermeyer — Chad’s daughter — won the 500 free. The Lions also would take a handful of second place finishes, as well.

With their first meet in hand, the Lions had about a week to practice and prepare for Windermere High. This time, however, it would be the Lions walking away with their first win in school history. In the 83-66 victory for the girls, the Lions racked up first-place finishes in the 200-medley relay and 400-free relay, while Hoenstine won the 500 and 100 free and Emma took first in the 200 free and 100 fly.

The win is something positive for the swimmers to hang their collective hat on, but more importantly it represents everything that the fledgling program has worked so hard for.

“All of our hard work has paid off,” Sam said. “People can see that we worked really hard for our win, and that we’re not doing it just to do it — we’re doing it for a purpose.”