Trinity’s Sabotin named The Tribune’s Girls Swimmer of the Year

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Trinity Lutheran senior Rachel Sabotin finished her final IHSAA girls swimming state meet in style.

The three-time state qualifier in the marathon 500-yard freestyle gave up the event in favor of the 100-yard butterfly.

The switch paid off.

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In addition to taking third place in the state in the 200 individual medley with a time of 2 minutes, 2.35 seconds, Sabotin earned bronze in the butterfly with an equally impressive time of 54.90 seconds.

It’s a tremendous improvement over last year’s marks in the 200 IM and 500 freestyle in which she took seventh in both.

Her consistent excellence in the pool is why she’s been named The Tribune’s Girls Swimmer of the Year.

Though Sabotin wasn’t out looking to place at state this year, she just wanted to enjoy one last trip to the Indiana University Natatorium at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

“My goal here was just to have fun,” Sabotin said after finishing up at state. “It’s my senior year and the last time I’ll race high school. I just wanted to get up and see what I could do. Last year, I was seventh in both my races, so it was a pretty good step up from last year.”

Sabotin will now take her talent to the University of Akron next season, and even after just wrapping up her high school season, she is honing her skills for college.

Going into her college recruitment, Sabotin had never heard of Akron, but after a visit and seeing how the team operates, she settled on the university fairly quickly.

“In the recruiting process, I really learned that having a group of girls that is just a girls team is actually a lot more effective because you can get a lot closer and there is a lot less drama with the girls and the guys than with just the girls,” she said.

She originally had wanted to go somewhere warm but decided she could deal with cold winter weather for another four years.

In addition to her third- and seventh-place finishes at state the last two seasons, Sabotin finished sixth in the 500 freestyle in 2018 and 10th in 2017. Her sectional championship haul also is impressive, winning the 200 freestyle in 2017 and 2018, 200 IM in 2019 and 2020, 500 freestyle in 2019 and 100 butterfly in 2020.

With that collection of winning at the high school level, it’s only a matter of time before Sabotin starts claiming more hardware at the next level.

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