When junior Stephanie Chen joined swimming, she thought it was just another sport her parents were making her try. Now years later, she is a varsity swimmer on the Saratoga High swim team.

Chen originally began swimming because her parents signed her up for every sport when she was younger.

“I found out that swimming was the thing I was best at, and my parents were like you’re pretty good at this. So, I kept doing it, and finally I’m here,” Chen said.

While Chen struggled a bit at first, she gradually improved and learned how to compete at a higher level. Through the years, Chen has grown to love her sport.

“I just really like swimming and being in the water,” Chen said. “It’s just really aerodynamic.”
Boys’ swim coach, Christian Bonner has been coaching Chen since September 2010.

“For the past couple years, she’s been one of the stronger members of the girls’ team,” Bonner said. “And she’s one of the top, if not the top individual in [her] events.”

Even though swimming is commonly perceived as an individual sport, Chen loves the team aspect of the sport. As for swimming with a team, Chen really enjoys “swimming’s personality.”

“I feel like different sports have different personalities,” Chen explained. “I like how people in swimming are really outgoing and creative compared to other sports.”

Girls’ swim coach Kristen Thomson, who describes Chen as “a good, solid swimmer,” said that Chen was definitely a big asset to the social aspect of the team by organizing team bondings.

“[Chen] also likes to sell Girl Scout cookies to the team, who have to work extra hard to burn the extra calories off,” Bonner said.

According to Chen, this year’s team is very small, and she believes it will be really tough to win anything.

“I think our team’s goal this year should be to try to beat [Palo Alto], even though they have really strong swimmers,” Chen said.

She also believes that this season’s star swimmer will be senior Natalie Cheung, although there is some freshman talent on the team.

“We have Yayla Sezginer, a freshman, who’s a good backstroker,” Chen said. “We lost our backstroker last year, and [Sezginer] is really good.”

This year Chen will be swimming the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle.

“My personal goal is to make CCS finals this year,” Chen said.

The next meet will be on March 16 at Gunn High School.