COLORADO SPRINGS – When Ana Rojas looks at what motivates her to perform well during the high school girls swim season, it oddly doesn’t circle back to winning.
Although finishing first is always important, the high school season presents such a unique opportunity for her from a team standpoint that her primary focus is simply having fun. Because at the end of the day, being high school kid and swimming alongside friends and teammates is genuinely fun.
No matter which dual or invite the Doherty Spartans are competing at, she just has a way of savoring the moment and enjoying herself which helps the team as a whole swim to the best of its ability.
“Ana is a great teammate,” coach Murphy Barry said. “She’s amazing at bringing people together, keeping them excited and keeping them going during competition.”
Her ability helps with that in a lot of ways. She recently put pen to paper to swim collegiately at Purdue and while the process of committing to a Division I program is exciting, she’s also aware of what that means to a certain degree of public perception.
“Going into Signing Day I was so happy that I was committed,” she said. “But actually signing that paper made me think that I’m going to a DI school. I wouldn’t say that I feel any added pressure, I’m just here to do my thing and swim.”
And she swims well. The Spartans matched up in a dual meet with Cheyenne Mountain on Jan. 11 and Rojas took the win in the 100-yard butterfly. She took second in the 50 freestyle and watched as her friend Caroline Bricker maintained a lead to get the Red-Tailed Hawks a win in the event.
Swimming against the likes of Bricker as well as all the talented swimmers in the Denver area through the course of this season is crucial to getting her ready for the state swim meet next month.
“It helps a lot,” Rojas said. “We go to these dual meets, and we swim all these different races and for me it gets me into the routine of feeling that is just the same race. It might be different water at state, but it’s the same routine and I know what I’m doing.”
Right before the winter break, she won the 100 backstroke at the Cheyenne Mountain Invite which is traditional one of the toughest invites of the year. Her time of 55.6 seconds was three seconds better than Pine Creek’s Isabella Burton. Finishing three seconds ahead of anyone in any race at that event is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
It’s competing at those events that will help her eye a podium spot at state and she knows she has to keep working to get there.
“The invites are big,” Barry said. “The Cheyenne Mountain Invite was huge, we’re going to Arapahoe this weekend where she’ll get to see some of her state competitors and race against them. Being (Class) 5A we don’t get to see those competitors as much as much as some of the Denver teams do. It’s great to have those competitions.”