Amanda Sullivan
Special to the Citizen
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Swimming was a sport he fell in love with early. Despite playing basketball at the same time, he knew he loved being in the pool.
Park Hill South junior Ethan Roach joined the team this season after moving to Parkville from Florida. His dad’s job moved the family north of Kansas City, and Roach said his family knew they wanted to live close to the workplace in Briarcliff.
“We definitely wanted to go to South when we moved,” Roach said.
Despite living in Lee’s Summit, Mo., for the first five years of his life, Roach spent most of his life in Florida before moving to Parkville. He swam and competed with a club as early as the age of 8 and has loved the sport ever since.
Since moving into the Park Hill South district, Roach has found himself on a team that welcomed him with open arms.
“The team back home wasn’t the best, so it’s nice to be on a team like this,” Roach said.
His success has probably helped that welcoming atmosphere.
At the Ozark Invite on Saturday, Sept. 14, Roach placed first in two individual events — the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard backstroke. His IM time was about five seconds faster than the second place finisher.
Roach also competed in two relays, anchoring the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays, which placed second and third, respectively.
In the 200 free relay, Roach swam the fastest split time. His final recorded split of 21.59 was .04 seconds faster than the anchor’s of gold-winning Glendale. His 400 split time was the fastest on his team by 2.32 seconds.
Despite his success so far, Roach said he is still working on improving his times in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events with the end goal of going to the state championships. Still, he said he knows the rest of his teammates are capable of getting there too.
“We’re all going to swim fast at state,” Roach said. “It’s going to be exciting to see how far we can go and how high we can place at state. … I think we can go a long way with the number of people that have potential to swim fast.”
The state championships aren’t until Nov. 14, so for now, Roach said his goal is to keep improving and turn his times into state qualifiers — and hopefully a college offer.
“I want to go D-I for college,” Roach said. “I still have state. That’s going to determine where I can go. Junior year — that’s when they’re looking at us.”