Lady Panthers’ Hall named Swimmer of the Year
Postseason awards don’t always run true to form, but the 2023 Western Athletic Conference girls’ swimming championship did exactly that.
The Great Bend Lady Panthers repeated as conference champion with 584 points to finish ahead of runner-up Garden City’s 537 points. Dodge City placed third with 346, Liberal fourth with 255 and Hays with 225.
To the victor goes the spoils and in this case the Coach of the Year went to Great Bend’s Klara Gilbert and the Swimmer of the Year award went to Lady Panther junior Emilee Hall.
Hall was victorious in her two individual events – the 200-yard freestyle (2:15.34) and the 100-yard backstroke (1:05.15). She also swam legs of the winning 200-yard medley relay team (2:00.27), which narrowly edged Garden City by .01 of a second; she also swam on the victorious 400-yard freestyle relay unit (4:03.22).
Winning WAC has been common for the Lady Panthers, who have dominated the conference since the sport began in 1996. Great Bend won the first three in 1996-1997-1998 before Garden City took four in a row (1999-2002). Then, the Lady Panthers reeled off 17 consecutive titles before the 2020 season was cancelled by COVID.
But there were a certain number of unknowns entering the 2023 season as the Lady Panthers were under the direction of new coach Klara Gilbert and her husband/assistant coach Matt.
“I think I felt like I was under a lot of pressure with the expectation of winning,” Gilbert said a week after watching her team dominate the WAC meet. “Garden City has a very strong team and the big thing for us was where to place swimmers in certain events. What relays were we stacking and I think the tough part was simply not knowing the girls early in the year.”
Garden City interrupted the streak in 2021 before the Lady Panthers reclaimed the top spot in 2022 and repeated this season with a bigger margin of points over the Lady Buffs. In 26 seasons of WAC competition, the Panthers own 21 titles and Garden City five. No other school has won a girls’ swimming title.
Gilbert arrived in Great Bend with her husband, who serves as the head coach at Barton Community College and she is the assistant for him. She had a decorated college career at Fresno Pacific International after arriving from Israel, her native country.
“I think one of the big things that happened was I sat down with the whole team, and a lot of it was senior input, and talked about where we needed girls the most in certain events to give us the best chance of winning,” Gilbert said. “This way, everyone was included in decisions. I did the basics to explain to the girls what we needed and then they made some of the decisions to switch events to help the team out. I feel like we used every one of the new kids.”
The opening event of the WAC was the 200-yard medley relay and it ended up being a near photo-finish and the Lady Panthers’ win provided the early momentum as they eventually won seven of the 11 events, including all three relays.
“It helped a lot with momentum,” Gilbert said of that first relay victory. “Everybody stepped up and contributed. I think the girls were super happy and winning WAC is very important.”
Great Bend’s Emilee Hall races to Swimmer of Year award
When Emilee Hall and her teammates first met the new swimming coach for Great Bend High School, it was a little daunting introduction to say the least.
“I was a little intimidated at first because learning about her background and her accomplishments, I was afraid that I wouldn’t meet her goals,” Hall, a Great Bend junior, said of first-year Lady Panthers’ coach Klara Gilbert. “But, she was so welcoming to all of us and she made personal relationships with all of us so swimming for her was really great.”
Hall, with competition from a couple of her teammates and from two other double-individual event winners in Hays’ Izabel Schmidt and 2022 WAC Swimmer of the Year Avery Meng of Garden City, won the 200-yard freestyle and the 100-yard backstroke and then led off two winning relays to help propel the Panthers to their 19th WAC championship in the last 20 seasons. Overall, they have won 21 of 26 WAC titles.
“It was really insane,” Hall said of hearing her name announced when the meet in Hays concluded and awards were made public. “There were other girls who could have been chosen. I’ve been swimming with most of them since I was age 8.”
Hall said that the evolution of working with Gilbert in the 2023 season was having a belief in the coach and trusting her coaching philosophy.
“Just hearing her stories and to know that she had been in the same place we were in – homework, practice workouts, pre-meet conditioning – you just developed a belief system with her,” Hall said of Coach Gilbert. “It wasn’t even about the seven event winners we had – she utilized every swimmer in the best way possible to give us thirds, fifths and any place where we could earn points.”
Hall’s winning time in the 100-yard backstroke (1:05.15) and the 200-yard freestyle (2:15.34) combined with opening legs of the 200-yard medley and 400-yard freestyle relays were the contributors to her being named Swimmer of the Year.
“The 100-yard back is probably my best event and it’s the one I like the most,” Hall said in being asked her preference of the different strokes and races in which she competes. “The 200 (free) is just a flat-out sprint now and you’re just trying to get to the finish line. The backstroke is more the distance I like.”
Hall has spent quite a bit of time honing her skills in the backstroke and she would be considered a student of the event in explaining what makes up a good backstroker.
“Starts are huge because you are in the water, your feet are on the timing pads, your arms and hands are above your head and then you launch yourself up and out from the starting wall,” Hall explained. “Sometimes you’re in a vertical position, another in a horizontal and others your body is sideways. You’re flipping over sometimes on your stomach and you have to focus on the turns and make sure you get that count down and you’re quick off the wall. It’s just a lot of muscle memory and not think too much about it when you’re actually in the race.”
Hall said that swimming in the individual events and then contributing to winning relays makes the WAC team championship and her individual award all the more meaningful.
“There’s a lot of good swimmers on our team and any one of them is capable of being the top swimmer,” Hall said of her teammates. “We’re just happy to have won and look forward to state and then coming back next year and see if we can improve on our times.”
Hall said that the tradition of winning WAC was always on the team’s mind but also that it helped to stay focused throughout the season.
“You know you want to be that next team that wins the next WAC,” Hall said. “This season was a lot of fun because Coach (Gilbert) valued our opinion and explained to us what we needed to do to win and then why. We were all proud of everyone on the team.”
2023 Girls Swimming Team Standings
| SCHOOL | POINTS | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Great Bend | 584 |
| 2 | Garden City | 537 |
| 3 | Dodge City | 346 |
| 4 | Liberal | 255 |
| 5 | Hays | 225 |
WAC Coach of the Year – Klara Gilbert, Great Bend.
2023 Western Athletic Conference
All-Conference Girls Swimming
| EVENT | SWIMMER | SCHOOL | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|
| 200y medley relay | Emilee Hall Clarise Snapp Ellyson Somers Josephine Mazouch | Great Bend | 2:00.27 |
| 200y freestyle | Emilee Hall | Great Bend | 2:15.34 |
| 200y individual medley | Avery Meng | Garden City | 2:25.58 |
| 50y freestyle | Izabel Schmidt | Hays | 24.99 |
| 100y butterfly | Ellyson Somers | Great Bend | 1:08.91 |
| 100y freestyle | Izabel Schmidt | Hays | 54.69 |
| 500y freestyle | Braylee Carper | Great Bend | 6:29.53 |
| 200y freestyle relay | Kamryn Johns Clarise Snapp Sydney Kruckenberg Braylee Carper | Great Bend | 1:54.88 |
| 100y backstroke | Emilee Hall | Great Bend | 1:05.15 |
| 100y breaststroke | Avery Meng | Garden City | 1:11.27 |
| 400y freestyle relay | Ellyson Somers Kamryn Johns Josephine Mazouch Emilee Hall | Great Bend | 4:03.22 |
