Crysel, St. Mary’s Academy have sights set on team title in 2022-23

With two more seasons of swimming left in her prep career, St. Mary’s Academy star Caitlin Crysel will likely venture to the next level of the sport with a classification record or two in hand.

But all she could talk about recently, after returning from a weekend at the Speedo Winter Junior Championships in early December, was seeing the potential of the rise of her Wildcat teammates from year to year and the desire to get in the mix of the Class 3A team title race when the state meet comes back around in February.

“I think that definitely last year I had a lot of individual success, but something that was even more awesome to see was the success we had as a team,” she said. “When I was a freshman, we were like seventh overall and last year we got third, so that was awesome. One of my goals is to see the team do well; I would love to see that.

“I love competing in high school, the environment is really great and I love the people on my team. I’m excited to have fun and just race.”

The little things mattered to the Wildcats in their third-place finish, as the points race for that spot was pretty tight between SMA, Liberty Common, Holy Family and Glenwood Springs. With several young stars on the SMA roster, it was more than a one-woman show as they squeezed 264 points out of the meet (Liberty Common had 263, while Holy Family scored 251).

However, Crysel in her sophomore season was partly responsible for 138 of those points — she swam on a championship relay (the 400 freestyle), a runner-up relay (the 200 medley) and found herself on the top of the podium in the 200 individual medley as well as the 100 breaststroke.

Now, about those records.

Year over year, it’s hard to hold records in swimming but for now, Crysel is the 3A record-holder in the IM (2:05.34, a half-second faster than the previous mark set in 2017). She also came oh-so-close to the breaststroke standard in 3A (1:05.26) when she touched out in 1:05.63 last year.

Head coach Kelly Shipley said that breaststroke record is also well within reach, but one of the things the third-year Wildcats coach said she liked about Crysel’s demeanor was the fact she’s not out to break records.

“She got that IM record last year, and it was just kind of like, ‘Huh? Oh, well I just had fun and it was great because I had someone pushing me,'” Shipley said. “It wasn’t like that was her goal. She takes each race one at a time, has fun with it and just likes to compete. And she doesn’t boast, but obviously she’s a very accomplished swimmer.”

She also has some swimmers on her own team pushing her. Sophomore Riley Mills and junior classmate Blair Franciscus helped forge those relay finishes at state last season, and Mills turned in a couple of top-3 individual swims as well.

“Blair and Riley both challenge me in practice and help me work when I’m with the St. Mary’s team, and beyond that they push me to be a better teammate,” Crysel said. “Push me to reach out to the younger kids and really help create that team environment that we’re all really looking for.”