Especially
the seniors. Thursday (Sept. 27) marked the Gators’ final home dual meet of the
season (they will have the AMDG Invitational on Oct. 27), so the team held its
Senior Day during its meet against Anthem Boulder Creek.
Three
swimmers, two divers and three team managers were honored with tributes from
teammates and tokens of appreciation, such as flowers.
One of the
seniors was Izzy Gomez, who has endured many ups, along with a few downs, along
the way. She is swimming for her third set of coaches in four years. Through it
all, she has remained a loyal Gator.
She knew
this would be the last day, but it didn’t seem to hit her until she began to
talk about it.
Gomez, whose
specialty is freestyle events, including relays, laughed with her teammates and
hung out under the blue Xavier canopy where coaches Mark Rankin and Jennifer
James were monitoring the team’s progress.
“This day is
a little bittersweet,’’ Gomez said. “I will have to leave all of my teammates
and my wonderful coaches, and that will be hard.’’
The other
seniors likely would echo those sentiments.
“My
teammates have been there for me, cheering me on, making me feel better if
things didn’t go the way I had hoped, and making me laugh,’’ she said.
Swimming was
all about fun when Gomez arrived at Xavier as a freshman. As a sophomore, she
and her teammates were introduced to a new coach, Maureen “Mo’’ Rankin, who
emphasized the seriousness of the tasks ahead but realized that kids are still
kids and they need to be silly every now and again.
Then last
year, when Gomez was a junior, things came crashing down on everyone when Mo had
a recurrence of a previous cancer. She fought hard, but did not survive,
passing away on Sept. 25. Her husband, Mark, and James helped guide the girls
through the darkness.
The season
was dedicated to Mo, and the team vowed to win the state championship.
They stayed
true to that and had one of the strongest performances of any Xavier team in
quite some time.
“After she
died, we became even more of a team,’’ Gomez said. “It was great to be able to
dedicate everything to her.
“Mo was
really supportive of me and my teammates. She got me through some mental
blocks. She always asked me how I was doing, not just in my swimming, but more
than that, with my life outside of swimming.’’
Gomez hopes
to attend the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she would like to earn a
degree in the medical field.
Her journey
has not been much different than those of her teammates, past, present and
those who will remain when she graduates. She has had some good moments in the
pool and some challenges, and will leave Xavier with a complete experience.
And you
can’t ask for much more than that.
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