Heather Harper, a home-schooled senior who swims for Redmond High School, overcame last fall’s season of heartbreak to achieve swimming glory at Saturday’s Class 4A state swim and dive finals at King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way.
Last year in the 100-yard breaststroke event, Harper was edged out at the wall by Skyline freshman Maria Volodkevich – by just two hundredths of a second.
This time around, however, Harper was bound and determined not to have it happen again, as she out-touched Eisenhower senior Emilie Pleger at the wall to reclaim the gold in the 100-yard breaststroke. Harper, who shared the state gold medal in the breaststroke as a sophomore before settling for silver last season, won Saturday’s race in 1 minute, 3.92 seconds, just .09 faster than Pleger’s time of 1:04.01.
“It was very scary,” said Redmond coach Julie Barashkoff on the photo finish. “(Pleger) definitely wanted it as much as Heather did. Heather lost it at the wall last year, and she wasn’t going to lose it at the wall this year. She stretched as far as she could, and she was going to get there. Those last 15, 20 yards, they were pretty nerve-wracking.”
A DREAM COME TRUE
Ever since coming so close last November, Harper dedicated herself to capping her high school swimming career with another gold medal in the 100-yard breaststroke, a title she shared in 2008 with Garfield’s Maddy Morgan.
“I have been working for this all year, especially after coming so close last year, I’ve been training a lot harder than I ever have,” said Harper, who signed to swim at Boise State just before the state swim meet got underway. “It was a dream come true, to win state senior year. I’m very happy with my time, very happy with how I raced it.”
Although many thought of Harper as a clear-cut state favorite, Pleger surprised many in the preliminaries, swimming an automatic All-American time of 1:03.81, nearly a second faster than Harper.
“It made me realize that there was going to be other competition out there,” admitted the soon-to-be Bronco. “I knew it was going to be a fight.”
During the race, Harper could see Pleger out of the corner of her goggles heading into the last turn, which is when a year’s worth of preparation kicked in, as Harper was not to be denied coming down the stretch.
“I told myself, ‘This is the moment you’ve been training for this whole year, bring it home,'” Harper recalled. “Whenever we’ve been in a hard set, or a hard practice or meet, that’s what’s gone through my head … you gotta push it to the very end, the very last finish. I knew I wanted to get to the wall first.”
A TEAM EFFORT
With all the distractions this season due to the Redmond Pool being closed, having to relocate practices at Kingsgate in Kirkland and rescheduling swim meets, Barashkoff said that the resulting team camaraderie was unlike anything she had seen before.
“They were so dedicated to practice and helping each other get home since we weren’t right across the street,” she said. “We were kind of in our own private little world at Kingsgate, we were the only team out there and there were four lanes. I wouldn’t change a thing. It was a great growing experience for us. I loved it.”
Unlike last year, when Harper was the only state representative from Redmond, this year the Mustangs were determined to send one relay team to state.
The problem was, the Mustangs weren’t even close to the state qualifying time of 1:54.90 in their best event, the 200 medley relay.
“We couldn’t even break 2:02.00 all season, but we said ‘We have to get a relay to state, so Heather is not all alone,'” Barashkoff said. “That was our goal.”
Then, as if by magic, something clicked.
After re-working their relay lineup a few times to get the right combination, the Mustangs kept improving and snuck into state with a time of 1:54.43 at the district meet.
From there, the team — comprised of Harper, Emily Smith, Kisa Isobe and Allison Binkerd — just kept getting better, culminating with a sixth-place state finish in a season-best time of 1:52.75.
“It just brings tears to my eyes, because they wanted that so badly, to be on the deck and swim with her,” said Barashkoff on her relay team’s amazing run. “Every single time they swam, starting at Kingco, they dropped time … both days at districts, at the state prelims, and again in the finals.”
Even Harper herself was stunned, considering that she was the only swimmer out of the four with any experience swimming on the pressure-packed stage of the state meet.
“One of the girls (Emily Smith) has never swam on a swim team before, another (Kisa Isobe) is a Japanese exchange student, so all of this was new to her… and our other girl Allison is a club swimmer, and she’s never been to state before,” Harper explained. “I’ve been in that spot before as a sophomore … but they’ve never been in that moment. It was really exciting to be able to be a part of that.”
Most importantly, it allowed for Harper’s Redmond teammates, as well as a pair of alternates, to be right there on the pool deck with her in celebration of her victory after her final high school swim.
“Heather just really enjoyed having her teammates down on deck with her because we are a team – it’s not just one person,” Barashkoff said. “Heather gets that, and she encouraged girls to come down. It’s definitely not all about Heather, it’s about everybody helping her earn that state title. She knows she couldn’t have done that alone.”
