By Chad Koenen

Publisher

The Hamm family was more-than a little busy last week as they traveled to the Twin Cities for the state swim meet.

For the second straight year, Hope and Faith Hamm competed at the state swim meet at the University of Minnesota. 

The sisters compete for the Detroit Lakes swim team as part of a coop agreement between Frazee High School and Detroit Lakes High School.

After competing in last year’s state swim meet in diving, sophomore Hope Hamm was excited to return to the state meet for the second straight year. 

“It’s exciting to go down just so you can see all of the other girls go (and compete),” said Hope. 

The Frazee High School sophomore took 22nd place out of 32 divers with a score of 131.80. She just missed out on making the cut after preliminaries as the top 20 divers advanced to the next round of diving.

After qualifying for state in three events, Faith Hamm was named as the section swimmer of the year. A senior at Frazee High School, Faith is competing in her fourth state tournament as a member of a relay, while making her second trip as an individual.

She qualified for state in the 200-freestyle, as well as the 500-yard freestyle individually. Faith advanced to the consolation finals in the 200-freestyle after finishing in 15th place in the preliminaries with a time of 2:00.48. 

“That one has always been my favorite (event),” said Faith. “It has an endurance part to it, but it is also a sprint.”

Heading into state Faith said her goal was to make the top 16 once again, while also breaking the 2 minute mark. She just missed out on breaking the 2 minute mark as she finished with a time of 2:01.56 in the finals, but was able to finish in 15th place overall in the 200-yard freestyle. 

Endurance is a big part of Faith’s other individual event at the state meet, the 500-yard freestyle. She posted a personal best time at the state swim meet with a time of 5:30.45 to finish in 18th place overall.

As she wrapped up her senior season in the pool, Faith said she was looking forward to having the opportunity to compete on the biggest stage with swimmers from across the state.

“I’m looking forward to all of the fast swims and seeing if I can improve my times from sections,” she said.

  The 400-yard relay team finished in 23rd place in the preliminaries with a time of 3:53.44. Members of the team include Faith, as well as Marin Westrum, Emily Peterson and Riley Wendt. 

In addition to the Hamm sisters, the Detroit Lakes swim team had three other people advance to state. Having so many girls advance to state provides a big boost for the program as a whole. As the group of state swimmers walked the hallways at Detroit Lakes High School last week, head coach David Voller said the team was able to show some of the younger students about the opportunities that await them should they go out for swimming when they get older. 

“Definitely it helps our program a lot because we can show success,” said Voller.