Four Unique Swimmers Combined Into One Incredible State-Bound Relay for La Grange

The La Grange girls 200 medley relay made swim history last week at regionals, breaking the school record and qualifying for this week’s state meet in the process. We’re proud to honor the members of that relay as this week’s Fayette County Athletes of the Week. They are competing this week in San Antonio at state.

“We interchanged people on this relay most of the season trying to find the best combination,” said La Grange swim coach Gretchen Ledwik. “Around December we settled on these four girls and challenged them to get faster, and they worked hard. We fine tuned a lot of their skills. Magic happened. They really rose to the occasion at the regional meet.”

Lyria Hartley, a freshman, leads off the relay with the backstroke. Then Adysen Janacek, a sophomore, swims the breaststroke. The third leg of the relay is Elena Supak, a senior, who swims the butterfly stroke. And finally the last leg of the relay is Eleanor Carey, a senior, who swims the freestyle. We caught up with all four swimmers and their coach Tuesday afternoon as they were about to board a bus to drive to Brenham to practice, which they do three times a week because La Grange doesn’t have a pool for them to workout in.

“It feels great. It feels like a big accomplishment (getting to state),” Hartley said.

“Last year was really fun (going to state). I’m really glad to be going back again,” Janacek said.

“I’m very excited to know that my work through all these years of swimming have brought me here,” Supak said.

“Last year, seeing how the community supported us was amazing,” said Carey, who was on a relay that made it to state last year. “I’m excited to be going back.”

All four of these girls have been swimming for years to get to this point (some starting as young as three and four years old) with many starting as youngsters in the Fayette Area Swim Team (FAST).

All four also talked about the uphill battle they faced to make it this far without a school pool.

“It does take up a lot of time,” said Hartley, who wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up. “When I have something else after school I have to miss and plan around it, but I do enjoy going to Brenham.”

“Other schools have their own pool and we don’t,” said Janacek, who said she plans to study business after high school. “To make it to state, we have to work ten times harder.”

“It takes a lot of time out of your day,” said Supak, who plans to study nursing after graduation. “We have to choose what we are going to do. We can’t swim every day like other teams.”

“It’s hard to manage homework and all the other extra curriculars with the practices because it takes up almost the whole evening, but we make it fun and we go eat and we’ll do homework and talk to each other on the bus, so it’s good team bonding too” said Carey who this thinking about studying business at UT after graduation.