CLAYTON -- If Raleigh Carter School’s Rachel Hatt had beaten Michaela Carter more soundly in the 50-yard freestyle at the Class 1-A/2-A state swimming championships, the Corinth Holders High School freshman could have lived with that.
But she didn’t. Hatt, a 5-foot-9 sophomore, edged the 5-8 Carter by a mere .01 of a second to take the championship. It is a bitter pill for Carter to swallow and this budding rivalry is what will drive her for the next 12 months – until the pair meet again at the state championship meet.
“At church the other day, this lady looked at her son and said, “She is a state champion,’” Carter said. “I had to say I wasn’t – that I just missed it. This is pushing me to keep swimming faster and harder. I don’t want to stop until I beat her and become state champion.”
The result came as little surprise to Carter’s high school coach, Maureen Blandford. Blandford first became aware of Carter when the 10-year-old moved to the area from Akron, Ohio. She swam on Blandford’s summer league team, the Riverwood Rays.
“She was tall and good,” Blandford said. “I compared her times as an eighth-grader to the state times last year, and I knew she had the capability to be in the top three. She has to work out hard and not loaf. But she has that determination and she wants to succeed – she has that drive.”
Carter’s time in a preliminary heat was slightly better than Hatt’s, but the Raleigh Charter standout touched the wall ahead of Carter by the narrowest of margins in the finals. Sometimes there is second-guessing by a swimmer when a race is that close, but not in Carter’s case.
“The race goes by very fast,” Carter said. “You think you are doing everything right, and she (Blandford) told me I did, so there’s nothing for me to do but work harder, lift heavier weights and do more flip turns.”
Carter trains with her CHHS teammates once a week (a two-hour practice each day) and has morning and afternoon workouts Tuesdays and Thursdays with her satellite team (Marlins of Raleigh) coach, John Fischetti.
“I only have an hour or so time slot at Riverwood Athletic Club,” Blandford said. “Michaela needs more training and time for her to be successful because my workouts are between 2,500-3,000 yards and she needs more than that.”
Fischetti says he sees strengths in Carter’s swimming but, he sayss, she keeps getting better. “Michaela has some things that she does very well. Physically she is pretty good at kicking off the walls and that start is a big advantage for her, and with the races she does in high school, that’s important. “Every year that she’s been in our program, she has upped the level of work she’s done and made herself a better swimmer.”
Training adjustment
The biggest adjustment Carter had to make, according to Fischetti, was the training regimen.
“She was a little bit green in the training part of it,” he said. “But every year she has done a better job in that area. She was decent in the beginning but conditioning was tough for her and it took a while for her to gain the training that others had since they were 8 years old.”
Carter, 15, is not the only one who trains with MOR. Most of the swimmers at CHHS started with Blandford and are currently part of the year-round MOR program. Blandford said the additional training that Fischetti provides not only makes the swimmers better for their meets, but it helps her high school team as well. CHHS captured the Northern Carolina 2-A Conference boys’ and girls’ team titles this year (the second for the girls and first for the boys in the school’s brief two-year history).“Our depth got a lot better this year because of our training, which incorporated medicine balls, stretch pulls and calisthenics as well as John’s training,” Blandford said. “I helped them get to where they needed to be for his year-round program, and then he takes the training further.”
Carter says she enjoys MOR but likes being part of a team with girls her own age.“I don’t have that with MOR,” she said. “I like that the high school meets are 3-4 hours long where as the MOR meets can run three to four days. I can’t connect with anyone with MOR because there aren’t many girls in my age group but I have fun and enjoy myself more at the high school meets.”
Carter attended Catholic school in Ohio before her move to North Carolina and tried all the sports but said she wasn’t very good at any of them. She quickly became one of the Rays’ best swimmers and then joined MOR.
There was a time, however, that Carter didn’t enjoy the sport. “When I first started doing it, I really didn’t want to be there,” she said. “After a year of it – around the sixth grade when I joined MOR – I really wanted to start winning because I was tired of losing.”
Carter also credits her friend and fellow MOR swimmer Emily Duff, a Clayton High standout who now swims at Liberty University. “She really pushed me to become better and tells me to never give up,” she said.
Carter and Hatt will meet again next weekend at a year-round meet involving MOR and Hatt’s team, Raleigh Swimming Association (RSA), as well as other meets this summer. In addition to her upcoming year-round meets, Carter is one of 12 MOR swimmers invited to train with Olympic athletes in Colorado Springs, Colo., later this year at the Olympic Training Center.
But until next year’s high school state championship meet, Carter will continue to work to be the best she can be. “I replay that race (50 freestyle at states) in my head,” she said. “Every time I want to stop, I think of that hundredth of a second and I keep pushing on.”
Fischetti added,” Michaela is a good swimmer who has the desire to get better by working hard. And believe me, if she slacks off even a little bit, I can use that one-one hundredth of a second as a great motivator.”
