In the past four years, the East Lansing girls’ varsity swim and dive team has not lost a single home meet. And in the 2025 season, the team won every meet except one.
According to coach Madelyn Zink, at the start of the season, the team wasn’t sure how they would perform. They had lost 15 seniors and only gained two freshmen. With a smaller team, there’s less opportunity to score points at meets.
“We started out the season with the expectation just to have fun,” Zink said. “We had some depth with our returners,
but we were not sure how we would stack up against other teams.”
However, at their second meet of the season, Waverly Relays, the team saw their potential. At the end of the meet, the judges started announcing the scores. The coaches expected that they’d get anywhere from third to fifth place, but when the judges got to second place, where the team had placed for the previous three years, their name still wasn’t called.
“I was so excited that we even got back to that point,” Zink said.
But East Lansing wasn’t called for second place. They assumed a mistake had been made. But it was no mistake: by just a couple of points, the team got first place, which hadn’t occurred for over 30 years.
“Taking home that trophy, calling the alumni and telling them we finally did it on the bus ride home was one of the
greatest accomplishments,” Zink said. “It was truly where I think our season was really laid out in front of us.”
Kate Aupperlee (12), a freestyle swimmer who has been competitively swimming since sixth grade, finds that the depth of the team helps them succeed.
“We’ve got a lot of swimmers of a lot of different abilities, so even if we don’t win events, we can get a lot of high finishers,” Aupperlee said. “That’s super helpful, especially in our regular season, where we’re just doing dual meets.”
In swim, winning the conference is half-determined based on a team’s placing at the final conference meet, but also half determined based on the team’s dual meet record. The team got second place at their conference meet and also second place in their dual meet regular season, giving them second overall.
According to Elizabeth Wright (12), a freestyle and breaststroke swimmer, another large part of the team’s success came from their team community.
“We have a really good team support system and we all get along,” Wright said. “It’s such a hard sport that the only way to get through it is with your friends.”
The team does a lot of team bonding activities, like going bowling or out for dinner. This strong community helps connect the team, giving them a competitive spirit.
“I am more motivated to show up and try hard for these girls because they mean so much to me,” Aupperlee said.
On top of the team’s depth and camaraderie, the team is led by two coaches, Madelyn Zink and Michigan Virtual mentor Katie Smith. As the coaches, Zink and Smith schedule, plan and run practices and provide emotional support, homework help and team bonding planning. In addition, they meticulously write lineups for the meets, which, according to swimmer Zoe Salvador (10), also helps the team succeed.
“My coaches are very calculated with where they place people, so I think that’s very helpful,” Salvador said.
This May, eight of the swimmers will be graduating. For Aupperlee, moving on from the team is bittersweet.
“I’ve had a great swim career in high school and I’m so glad to have been part of something like that,” Aupperlee said. “I’m fine with being done, but I will miss all these people that I’ve grown so close to.”
