The De Soto High School girls’ swim team had a strong first meet at Shawnee Mission North High School on March 26.

While the team finished in seventh place, out of eight teams, swimmers say it was a great start to the season. De Soto was the smallest school to compete in the meet.

Freshman Gabrielle Mallozzi finished in the top 10 in the 100-yard backstroke and 100 yard freestyle.

Mallozzi swam her 100-yard backstroke in 1:21:18 and 100-yard freestyle in 1:07:55.

Sophomore Lyndsey Fowks finished eighth in the 100-yard breast stroke with a time of 1:28:84.

In the 200-yard freestyle relay, freshmen Sydney Hoover, Kayla Deghand and Moriah Putman and sophomore Kaylan Carney finished 16th out of 36 relay teams.

Senior Meaghan King cut three seconds from her 50-yard backstroke practice time to get to a time of 46.33. At the meet, she finished first in her heat and 32nd overall.

“We did very well. A couple of our swimmers are very experienced, and [we have] a couple swimmers that are very naturally fast swimmers, and that is very good for our team,” King said.

Also, the team has 19 members, which means “we have more chances of winning in a meet because you get more points. The more swimmers you have, the entries you put in, the more points you get,” King said.