Natalia Garcia says it takes a lot of time and dedication be a member of the swim team at Seymour High School.

“I really enjoyed all the life lessons it taught me,” Garcia said. “It taught me about punctuality, and working hard for what you want. I really enjoy being with my team, swimming with my team.”

Garcia began swimming in the Seymour Swim Club for two years. She then swam for a club in Mexico for two years before returning to Seymour.

She swim in the 200 individual medley in the sectional at Floyd Central last Saturday. She also swam 100 butterfly, 100 breaststroke and 100 backstroke during the season.

“I like the strokes,” Garcia said. “I’m O.K. with the freestyles, but I think I like all the other strokes better because of the variety. I truly love the IM because we swim a lot of freestyle during practice, so the IM is a really varied event.”

She said she usually swam the butterfly in the medley relay, and also swam a leg in the 400 free relay.

Garcia said she liked the big meets like sectionals.

“There is a lot more energy in the pool and it just gets me excited about swimming,” she said. “I loved the home meets and the fan support we had. Seeing my friends, I really liked that, too.”

Garcia said she enjoyed the boy-girl dual meets.

“With the girls you have a lot of support, and with the boys you just have a lot more noise and a lot more energy. That helps, too,” she said.

She said Floyd Central was her favorite away pool, and swimming in the sectional, “was a special feeling because you get to see all your teammates cheering for you, and you kind of like have that energy and you know that you have that support, which helps you swim a lot better in sectionals.”

She said staying positive was important.

“Swimming is a lot about endurance, and it’s not just like a physical endurance,” Garcia said. “I think its mental endurance. For example, in the relays if you see you’re a little bit behind, I think in your head physically you can get right next to that girl, but if you don’t believe you can you’re just going to lag behind. I think it’s a lot of mental endurance that really gets you where you need to be.”

Garcia takes her academics seriously.

“I think I’m going to be a Seymour Scholar this year,” Garcia said. “I really like our teachers, especially Owls Manufacturing, and the engineering teachers. In all my high-ability classes I feel the teachers are doing a really good job. They’ve really gotten me to where I want to be as I go to college.”