Sarah Guerrette hasn’t changed much since she first started swimming. Her mom and coach at Bow High School, Julie Guerrette, described her daughter as a driven and focused athlete.
And it’s been like that for as long as Sarah could float.
That passion has paid off with Sarah winning or reaching the podium in every regular-season race this year and qualifying for the state championships for the fourth year in a row. At the Division II championship, she took fourth in three events and sixth in her fourth. She earned Bow swimming’s Falcon Award and can now add the Concord Monitor’s Girls’ Swimming Athlete of the Year to that list.
“She’s always been very motivated and determined to establish what she set out to do. And that hasn’t changed,” Julie said.
“She focuses on her training and her sleep and her stretching and her dry land. And so she’s very motivated. She’s very passionate about it. And she’s very disciplined. And I haven’t seen that change as a parent. Since she started out, I never had to do anything but drive and feed her. She had her backpack, she was the first one out the door, she was the first one in the car, she was the first one in the pool, she was the last one to get out.”
Sarah’s senior season was abnormal. She once again had to swallow the hard pill of COVID restrictions. The number of meets was cut from 15 to three. At states, the field was divided into morning and afternoon sessions, so Sarah was racing the clock more than an opponent in the next lane.
But she was determined to find the good in all of it.
Sarah stepped whole-heartedly into a leadership role as a senior captain. She took a team that was filled with freshmen and did her best to teach them everything she could.
“I think something we really tried to push this year is you need to work your hardest because your teammates are depending on you, even if it is just an individual race. So I think that was really cool to foster the underclassmen, since we did have such a big group. And they worked so hard every day, and we all worked hard to help each other out,” Sarah said.
“I think the success and the excitement that she felt this year was really leading by example and getting additional kids qualified for states,” said Julie. “I think her efforts at practice for motivating others helped others achieve their personal goals.”
The fulfillment of leadership was great for Sarah. But the natural competitor was still sure to talk about how good it felt when she took home first in the five races she won this season.
“There is nothing like it when you finish your race at the end of the pool and when you look up at your team and everyone’s cheering for you,” said Sarah. “And it’s just such a sense of accomplishment and pride in yourself. That’s just one thing that I’m always chasing is that feeling of just – it’s pure joy for me. I love swimming and to know that my hard work has really worked out, there’s nothing else like it.”
Sarah will chase that winning feeling next year on a team that knows it better than most. She is joining the University of New Hampshire swimming and diving program. The Wildcats have won three of the last four America East championships and nine in total since 1998.
“I have never been more excited for anything in my life,” said Sarah. “It has been a dream of mine to swim for college since I was 8 years old. I know a lot of little kids don’t necessarily think about that. But that’s been a goal of mine for the past 10 years. And just to have an opportunity to work with such experienced coaches and such experienced teammates, I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity.”