Even though both of their seasons ended up short of the ultimate goal of reaching the UIL State Swim Meet in Austin, Jayden Palacio of Abilene High School and Levi Bryan from Cooper High School can look back on their senior seasons as successes.
Both swimmers qualified for the regional swim meet in Lubbock earlier in February after terrific performances at the District 4-5A swim meet in late January. Palacio set the Abilene High school record in the 100-meter butterfly (fifth in 1:01.60), and Bryan advanced to the regional meet in the 100-meter breaststroke (fifth in 1:10.05).
Jayden Palacio
At the regional meet, it was Bryan with the record-setting performance, establishing a new CHS record in the 100-meter breaststroke (1:09.8) as he finished under 1:10.0 in the event for the first time in his career. Meanwhile, Palacio finished 16th in the 100-meter butterfly at regional.
“It took a lot of years to break the 1:10.0 mark,” Bryan said. “I looked at the board, and my view was being blocked. When I saw it, I yelled ‘yes!’ and the official had to come over and ask our coach if I had yelled something else because I was really excited to see that time. Getting to the state swim meet would have been awesome but setting a personal best in my final swim was a great consolation prize.”
Palacio set his school record a couple of weeks earlier, finishing fifth in his specialty to qualify for the regional meet.
“That swim was the culmination of a lot of hard work,” he said. “Months and months of early morning training and hours upon hours in the water working and preparing. Overall, this year was great. I was able to improve a lot this year and put up a personal best in almost every meet.”
Abilene ISD swim coach Kelly McNamee, who has said goodbye to some of the most decorated swimmers in the district’s history in the last couple of years, will do that again soon when Palacio and Bryan graduate in May. And she already knows she’ll miss them next year when the swimming season rolls around.
“We’re going to miss both of those guys a lot,” McNamee said. “They’re the team captains that we can go to. They can lead our team, and I can ask them to do anything, and I know they’re going to do it. They’re just outstanding in the classroom and in the pool, and we’ll miss them.”
