Emme Starzman broke the Woodland record for the girls’ 100 yard breaststroke at the first meet of her freshman season.
Starzman, who is only a freshman, spends most of her time in the pool. She has swam for her whole life, starting her swimming career at just six years old. Starzman currently swims for the Woodland Regional High School girls’ swim team, along with Cheshire Sea Dogs which she has been swimming with since she was eleven years old. Prior to that she swam with the Seymour Swim Club, the Ansonia Swim Club, the Waterbury Barracudas, and the Long River swim team.
When she was in seventh grade, she came in first at the state championships for the 50 yard breaststroke and the 50 yard freestyle. In her eighth grade year, she came in first for the 50 yard freestyle and second for the 50 yard breaststroke. Going into high school, Starzman was ready to make some new records. Since Starzman is a freshman she felt the pressure of her first high school meet.
Before the 100 breaststroke event came around, she was trying to get herself more excited than nervous. Her teammates really helped her out with that.
“All of my teammates were trying to make me less nervous,” she explained.
While she was thinking about the record, it wasn’t her main focus.
“I really did want to get the record, I knew I could do it. It was the first meet, so I knew it would be a challenge. I didn’t want to put a lot of pressure on myself because it was the first meet, I knew there would be other meets.”
As she swam, her teammates were cheering her on throughout the whole race. They all knew she could do it. When she began her final lap everyone was going crazy, heads were flipping between the time board and Starzman’s lane. When she finished she was so surprised.
“I was looking at the board like ‘is that correct?’”
The board made no mistake. The time was correct. The original record set by Dia Gawronski with a time of 1:13.62, Emme Starzman broke the record with her time being 1:13.21. Starzman now looks ahead on her high school career, her next goal is to break the 50 freestyle record.
