The water splashes as swimmers push through it to get to the wall as fast as possible. Senior Bobby Sayre pushes onto the touchpad and comes up to see his time: 59.01 seconds.

On Dec. 3, Sayre broke a 24-year-old varsity record in his 100-yard breast. This was a different experience for Sayre, considering he usually swam freestyle and butterfly events.

Sayre has been swimming for over half of his life on club and school teams, but every broken record and win still brings excitement to him and his teammates. Head swim coach, Bryan Szweda, was ecstatic when Sayre broke the record.

“I swam with the former record holder so it was fun to take his record down. It had been there for too long so I was very happy to bring the record down,” Szweda said.

Although this has not been an event Sayre has focused on in the past, he had been getting ready for this event in the weeks prior.

“I set my sights on the record at the beginning of the season because I knew that it was something that was attainable in-season,” Sayre said.

Szweda was confident in Sayre’s breaststroke 100-yard swim. This brought him to the conclusion that Sayre was going to break the record.

“He is extremely upbeat, he has a lot of energy even when he’s tired and he is an extremely confident swimmer… he came into the season and although this was not traditionally one of his best events he was getting better. He had a deal with him, the first meet we’ll see how he’ll do and go from there,” Szweda said.

As the season went on, Sayre progressed in his 100-yard breaststroke to a point where he began to incorporate more of it into his practices. This helped him mentally prepare for this event.

“I knew that how I saw was going to be a matter of how much confidence I had and my mental state. It was a relief when I broke the record because there was no doubt that I was able to.” Sayre said.

With his confidence and the faith of his peers and coaches, Sayre was able to beat the record by 1.83 seconds, bringing the previous record holder’s time of 1:00:84 to his time, 59.01.