Freshmen state swimmers Kellstrom, Law, Ryan and Soto send some of the credit to upperclassmen for helping them to get to Indy by treating them as equals from Day 1

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

For many of us, the Christmas season is an excuse to set records for caloric intake, free of guilt.
Not so for Chesterton swimmers. They use the Christmas break to head in the opposite direction. The workouts are more intense than at any other point in the year so that they can set records tracked by electronic stopwatches in February.
To that end, one stretch of the Christmas Eve practice is not just physically grueling, but particularly mentally taxing. It’s called Silent Night. No music to heighten the energy level. No motivational yelling from the deck for the benefit of friends in the pool.
“We aren’t allowed to be loud for the first 30 minutes to an hour, and it’s definitely way harder to do hard sets when you don’t have your teammates encouraging you,” freshman Reese Kellstrom said.
Even if it lasts for 30 minutes, it feels longer than an hour to the swimmers.
The lesson from that exercise was not lost on the four freshmen swimming for Chesterton at this weekend’s state meet in Indianapolis.
“It’s to show us that as a team we help each other more than what we already know, the value of teammates, and it helps us to motivate each other and encourage each other because we realize how important it is,” Reese said.
If any swimmer has any doubts as to swimming being a team sport, they no doubt vanish at the annual Silent Night pracitce.
Four freshmen, three sophomores, two juniors and two seniors qualified to swim at state. Kellstrom, Brynn Law, Taylor Ryan and MaKenzie Soto are part of a freshman class that came with high expectations and exceeded them.
“They’re phenomenal. Truly, our freshman girls are some of our best trainers on the team and they walked in the door prepared for what this was going to entail,” said head coach Jenni Kellstrom, Reese’s mom. “Two or three of the four have perfect attendance. One of the girls has only missed one practice since back in the start of spring season in April. So they show up. They get the job done. They put in the work, and they don’t miss.”
The Four Freshmen, a barbershop quartet that originated in Indianapolis, was all the rage in the 1950s. Chesterton’s four freshmen are rock stars, bound to keep the team’s good vibes and harmony from this season rolling for three more years.
Their presence in the state meet is all that’s needed to prove that getting a little better every day works.
Reese Kellstrom (butterfly) and Law (freestyle) swim for the 200-yard medley relay, the first event of the meet. Law also qualified for the 50 free and 100 free and swims a leg of the 200 free relay, so she’ll have a busy night at Friday’s preliminaries, aiming for a busy Saturday afternoon. Mackenzie Soto is on the 200 free relay. Taylor Ryan made the field for the 100 breaststroke.
You don’t get that far without natural talent and a home environment that instills accountability. These swimmers’ blessings extend beyond those factors. They also have older teammates modeling the right behavior for them so that when it’s their turn, they’ll do the same for younger classes. An important part of that modeling can be summed up in three words: No cliques tolerated.
In talking about what she likes about coming to practice every day, Soto revealed that important quality to any successful team.
“I like how we are all unified as one team and we’re not all separate. We’re all there for each other,” Soto said. “I like just being friends with people from all four grades. Normally, you wouldn’t talk after school with people from other grades, but I feel like it’s different because we’re on the same team.”
It’s one thing to hear that moving from club workouts to high school means a step up in intensity. It’s another thing to experience it.
“I definitely thought it was harder than I expected, especially with all the school work on top of it,” Ryan said. “But it was good for time management. I learned how to do that.”
Law said: “I knew it was coming and so I did expect how hard it would be, but after you do it for a long time it kind of becomes more you’re used to it, so it’s not as hard but it’s still challenging.”
This week, with tapered workouts followed by the crown jewel for any high school swimmer, is a reward for all the work done to build a strong foundation.
“The Christmas workouts, that was really hard,” Law said. “I took a lot of naps between practices and ate a lot more, too.”
Soto said she knew difficult workouts would be on the menu in high school, “but you just kind of keep pushing and you get through it.”
With the help of friends.
Interestingly, when asked to name their favorite races, each mentioned a different stroke, so if it ever makes sense when cobbling together a lineup to put them all in the 200 medley relay, look out! Such a quartet would feature Kellstrom doing the backstroke, Ryan the breaststroke, Soto the butterfly and Law would be freestyling.
Plenty of time to wonder what that might look like. For now, they will not just attend for the first time the state meet at IU Indianapolis’ stunning natatorium, they will participate and there will be nothing silent about it.