After warm-ups and the home Jamboree, Tanvi Mavuri takes the diving board and launches into the water. Once she completed her event, she met with the timers to check how she did and if she beat her best time.

The cooperation between teammates on the swim team encouraged them to strive for success. As a team with only seven swimmers, they contained both a positive perspective and a motivational attitude to reach their goal.

“ This team is unique: we do not have a large number of people but we cooperate when we see each other and we cheer each other to succeed in meets,” said Kelvin Kim, a seventh-grader, a first time swimmer.

The Lower Secondary swimmers made up for their lack of members with focusing on the importance of true sportsmanship and cooperation.

Vaughn Schneider, an eighth-grade swimmer in his first season, said,“ we know everybody. We are less of a team and more of a family.”

Vaughn emphasized, a lot of students were fairly new to swim,“ A lot of us are just trying our best and trying to overcome our times. That way we can at least get a little bit of points on the board to make a name for GSIS.”

The team bonded through various team activities.“ Our swim team has our own fashion. When we start the KAIAC tournament, we change our hair color to yellow, which represents GSIS,” said eighth-grade Woobin Cha, a third year swimmer.

The coach, Mrs. Diana Mircea, passionately said her positive perspectives towards her swimmers, as she mentioned how the“ growing numbers” excites her and makes her“ want more for them”.

“ I think the communication is very good in general. The ones on last year’ s team, 90 percent of them, continued this year,” Mrs. Mircea added.“ They are not lacking interest, which is very encouraging for me and our school.”