All photos from The Blue and Gold archives.
The Malden High School Swim Team has done it once again: they have gone undefeated for two seasons in a row. In the past five years, the team has lost only one meet: a virtual meet in 2021 to Hopkinton.
For Coach Jessica Bisson maintaining this incredible record can “add to the pressure of coaching,” but she stresses that her “ultimate goal is for the swimmers to have a solid competition,” adding, “if we lose a meet, but the kids swam their hearts out, I will never be disappointed in a loss.” She went on to say that there are even some benefits to losing, “sometimes losing is the best way for athletes to push harder and not get complacent.”
This year, the team had members make it to both Sectionals as well as the state tournament: Nathan Nguyen, Liam Bloom, Nimon Jusufi, Kyle Lee, and David Xu all made it to Sectionals while Joslyn Nguyen, Hailey Tran, Sophie Tran, and Tiffany Pham all made it to Sectionals as well as States.
During sectionals, the team had some amazing performances: Hailey managed to set a personal best in the 50 free finishing fifth in the race and qualifying for States; the girls in the 200 Free Relay cut sixn seconds off their time narrowly missing the qualifying time for States by less than a second; and the guys swam very well in both of their relays.
Later, at States, the girls continued their strong performances. Most notably, 7th-grader Sophie achieved her new personal record in the 100-yard Butterfly and sophomore Hailey Tran was able to finish eleventh out of 36 swimmers in the 50-yard Freestyle.
Bisson added that these feats were especially hard because of the three week gap between the end of the regular season and States. “It is always difficult to keep up with the stamina when the taper for the postseason lasts for three weeks,” she explained. Moving onto next year, she hopes to fine-tune the training process and make sure the postseason taper is individualized for each swimmer.
She attributes the team's success to the overall bond of the team. “Supporting one another in and out of the pool really helps the swimmers.” Senior Leo Chen also felt the supportive atmosphere of the team: “I came into swimming with a fear of the water and a fear of going to the deep end. All I knew how to do was flail around with freestyle. I didn’t know how to breathe properly…[the captains] helped me overcome my fear,” adding, “they were the reason we kept winning.” He also said simply, “the coach is the best coach.”
All in all, it was another great season for the Golden Tornados Swim Team, and with so many talented young swimmers, it can only get better from here.
