Astrophysicist Julian Barbour claims that there is no such thing as time. He says time is ungraspable and is always slipping through a person’s fingers and because it is has no physical properties it can’t really exist.

Well, the Manhattan High girls swim and dive team just proved Barbour wrong. Rather than have time slip through their fingers, it slipped away from the pool and out of their final scores, showing that time is not just a concept but a goal for each swimmer.

The girls had significant decreases in individual times during their Olathe swim meet on Friday, dropping seconds with each race and meeting new personal records along the way. They competed against 17 teams, including all but one that were the top ten at state last year.

“We had lots of best times with many athletes doing the most number of events that they had ever done,” Alex Brown, head coach, said.

According to Brown, the team had notable performances from freshman Faith Cummings, sophomore Talia Francois, junior Elly Hensley and senior Blaise Hayden, who all dropped times for their races with Hensley reaching a new personal best and Cummings qualifying for state.

“I think it went really well,” Hensley said. “Everyone there was really supportive of each other and we kept one another motivated throughout the whole meet.”

The same can be said for the divers, who not only competed Friday but also the day before, traveling to Salina with the Junior Varsity swimmers to compete against other schools’ Varsity teams. While there weren’t many divers, there were enough to create competition between the schools present; for MHS, that competition lead to victory through junior Shelby Goscha, who placed first.

“This meet was pretty laid back for how many divers were there,” Goscha said. “Everyone was super kind and it went by very quick.”

Despite its fast pace, the meet helped not just Goscha improve as a diver but the whole team as well. She feels as if some of her dives like her front double could’ve been better but is pleased that her placement was able to help the team overall.

“Hopefully I can continue to get first,” Goscha said. “That’ll help give the team points for our overall score.”

As the girls continue to practice, they also continue to focus on themselves, always striving for being at the top of their game.

“We just want athletes to continue to push themselves as we get into the harder part of our training so that they can swim their best at the end of the season,” Brown said.

The team’s next competition will be here on Wednesday where they hope to succeed against Topeka High, Topeka West, Seaman and Shawnee Heights.