It's an understatement to say that senior swimmers Ryke Beever, Brittan Butler, Stephen Grant and Will O'Hare have been a big part of the Siloam Springs program the last four years.
"Giant part," said head coach Stephanie Goddard, choking back tears. "They are our team. They've worked hard, and they're just an awesome group of kids that have a good work ethic."
"And I love them and I'm going to miss them."
The four swimmers will be taking part in their final high school meet on Friday and Saturday at the Class 6A/7A State Swimming and Diving Meet held at the Bentonville Community Center.
"Of course we're really excited," said Butler, who signed to swim at Oklahoma Christian last fall. "I don't know. I think it may be a little of, 'Yay, finally we're done,' but it's also going to be like this is my last time I'm going to swim with my bros.
"It's a little bit of bittersweet."
Butler and O'Hare will each swim in two relay races and two individual events at the state meet, while Beever will most likely swim one individual event and Grant probably two relays.
Final heat sheets for the state meet weren't available at presstime.
Butler has been the Panthers' most decorated swimmer since Ellis Miller, who broke Siloam Springs High School and state records and wound up swimming at the University of Arizona and competing in Olympic trials.
Butler, who started with the Siloam Springs Flyers and moved on to compete with the Razorback Aquatic Club AquaHawgs, excels at all the strokes and qualified in multiple events.
"Brittan has just been a workhorse from the time he started," Goddard said. "He was little bitty and he loved swimming and he knew that was what he wanted to do. I mean from the time he was 5, 6, 7 years old he just gets in and he works. He reminds me a lot of Ellis Miller and his work ethic. He just gets in and he goes and will just keep swimming, swimming and swimming and keep smiling the whole time."
O'Hare is another Flyers product from the time he was a young boy.
"Will's been swimming with us since he was 5 or 6, same as Brittan," Goddard said. "He's a versatile kid. He can swim any stroke that you want him to swim. He's good and he's fast at it.
"It's been fun watching him grow up. He comes from a good family, and he's a really, really good kid."
O'Hare is strong in the butterfly, but he said his best event is the 50-yard freestyle.
O'Hare said not swimming next year for Goddard will definitely be a change.
"I've been swimming with Coach Stephanie for probably 13 or 14 years through the Flyers and now through high school," O'Hare said. "It'll be really different not going to any more practices or anything like that. It's been a good time with coach and all these guys."
Beever didn't start swimming competitively with the high school until his sophomore season, Goddard said.
"He just walked in and he had never swam before," Goddard said.
Beever, who runs hurdles in track, is what Goddard labels a "sprinter."
"His sprinting ability is just amazing," she said. "Anything over 100 he's done, but you give him a 50 or 100 and he gets you where you want to go."
Beever agrees with the sprinter assessment.
"I'm very sprinting inclined," he said. "I can't do distances very well."
Beever also has another challenge that most swimmers don't have. He is a Type I diabetic and wears a device that monitors his blood sugar every five minutes.
"If my (blood sugar) scores haven't been in a good range during a swim meet or a track meet, it can affect how I perform," Beever said.
But Beever said he has been diligent about taking care of his blood sugar.
"I don't let it affect me in any way," Beever said. "I feel I'm not different from anyone else. I just have a few extra steps that I have to take care of."
Grant has been swimming for the last seven years or so, Goddard said.
"He's just a good all-around kid," she said about Grant. "I can put him in just about anything, and he can do any stroke."
Grant, however, likes to specialize in the freestyle," Goddard said.
"He's really good at the other strokes also. He just doesn't like to do them," she added with a laugh.
Grant said freestyle is his "go-to" stroke.
"Besides it probably being the simplest stroke, it really clicked with me," Grant said. "I just kind of took a liking to it from the beginning. I just poured my heart and soul into learning the stroke better and building my endurance and speed in it."
A handful of Siloam Springs boys underclassmen will also participate in the state meet on Friday and Saturday.
Sophomore Landon Cottrell and junior Hayden Moore will likely fill in on some relays, while sophomore Lee Thompson and Chase Kruger are alternates.
Freshman divers Gage Weaver and Damien Martin also qualified in the diving meet, which will be held Friday.
Goddard is looking forward to seeing the underclassmen pick up next season where their senior teammates are leaving off.
"They're going to swim again this summer and we've got to push them and get them ready for the upcoming season," Goddard said. "I look for good things. Landon missed the state cutoff time on his 200 IM by two-hundredths of a second. I look for him to be able to qualify in just about whatever he wants next year."
Siloam Springs learned on Tuesday morning that all three of their girls relay teams qualified for the state meet by finishing with top 16 times. Tabitha Eiland, Catherine Donner, Caroline Farine, Shayla Enlow and Britain Castagna (alternate) will compete in the 200 freestyle, 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays for the Lady Panthers.
Sports on 02/22/2017