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Kobe Dominguez

Here is Sal Bakri, a student athlete at Hall High School. He lifts with his fellow teammates from the swim team after practice in his own section in the weight-room following the covid guidelines while wearing a mask. This is the new norm the covid has created.

   Swimming has played a very important role in my life and Covid-19 has had a huge impact on my swim career the past year. Last year just two days before our state meet Covid cancelled the rest of the season. Nobody on Hall High’s swim team took this lightly as we were all in complete shock. We worked so hard the whole season just to have the most important meet get taken away from us so fast. This really taught us that you just never know what can happen at any given moment. As a team we learned to make the most out of any situation. We were so disappointed and wanted to come back this year like nobody would’ve imagined. We began to encourage our teammates to put in offseason work so that we could have the season we wanted last year. From going to extra practices on our own to begin weightlifting together at different gyms our team began to transform to a team nobody recognized. Everyone made drastic improvements this season and we created a strong bond within the team. Obviously everything was different when we came back. We had to have a bucket placed right outside our practice lanes with our masks inside so we can put them on right when we get out of the pool to protect ourselves from this virus. Meets were now live streamed on YouTube and our senior night was not as we expected but as a team we made it something to remember as we tacked on the final win to our perfect undefeated season. The season may have been shorter than we liked but we showed ourselves that if we really want to achieve our goals then we won’t let anything get in our way but continue to persevere throughout this pandemic.