This past weekend, the current New Mexico State Aggies invited their alumni swimmers to join them in the pool again for a bragging rights meet. The meet consisted of nine events without an official winner and afterwards both sides joined in lunch together.
After the meet, alumni swimmer, Natalia Villa spoke about her experience leaving NMSU.
“The hardest thing I’ve been through, harder than any breakup was when I had to leave the team so it’s nice to be with them again,” Villa said.
This was the first time the class of 2022 had been back together since graduation.
The meet began with the 200-medley relay and the alumni swimmers had a special advantage of being expemt from following any regulations. This set a clear distinction with the alumni doing half-lengths to beat the current swimmers.
The next event was the 100-individual medley and with all 10 lanes occupied, it was quite a sight to see during the fly portion.
In the 50-free, the swimmers invited two alumni football players from the stands to test their swimming abilities. Both managed to finish the 50-free while one football player kept up with the other swimmers.
Competition then paused for a diving event where a couple swimmers learned how to do the egg drop and practiced swan dives and backflips.
Assistant coach Molly Hill and sister Lucy Hill went head to head in the 50-fly. The Hills sisters were indistinguishable with nearly identical stroke patterns, the only difference was their suits.
The 100-free was a splash and dash event with swift performances by the swimmers. Going into the 50-back and breast, the swimmers demonstrated great form but the child, from the audience, who stole the microphone was the star of the event.
The t-shirt relay was the final event of the meet with one rule: the swimmer must wear the shirt before diving into the water.
The event was going fairly smoothly with the grey team slowly lengthening its lead over the green team. Then in an attempt to close the gap, the green team launched off the wall and accidentally tackled her teammate into the pool. I nearly forgot I was watching swimming and not the rugby match across the street.
After the festivities, NMSU’s junior Emilee Ferrari expressed her joy after seeing her prior teammates.
“The class of 2022 was back in town for a wedding, and it was awesome we could have our meet that same weekend so they all could come and swim together one last time, and it was amazing getting to see my mentors again,” Ferrari said.
The Aggie will now travel to Texas for back-to-back meets against Texas Christian University on Friday, Nov. 3 followed by North Texas University on Saturday.
