Jackson senior swimmer earns honorable mention in final race

Jackson senior Wade LaValle ended his swimming career at the Class 2 MSHSAA state championships on Friday, Nov. 15, in St. Peters.

LaValle placed 8th in the 500-yard freestyle consolation finals with a time of 5:04.3 for an All-State honorable mention. LaValle reached the consolation finals on Thursday with a 16th-place finish and a time of 5:01.52.

“I mean, the performance was not as good as I was hoping,” LaValle said. But the thing that's sad about it is it’s my last high school swim meet ever. So just swimming with these teammates and these coaches and then some of the people I swim year round with out there, it's my last meet high school meet with them. So it's, it's kind of sad.”

It was an emotional end to a successful swimming career at Jackson. Before he swam in the prelims on Thursday, he got accepted into Truman State, where he hopes to swim for the next four years.

“I actually found out about getting accepted yesterday behind the blocks for the 500y,” LaValle said. “So that was like a real big confidence booster.”

His final swimming event happened to be the longest one. LaValle said his approach to the 500-yard freestyle was to stay strong and focused while keeping his stroke count to a minimum, as well as get good kickbacks from each lap.

In the end, it was clear that he gave it his all.

“It feels like I’m swimming forever,” LaValle said. “I usually try to stay with everyone for as long as I can and just race my race, not get too caught up in the race.”

He had never made it this far in the season before this weekend and was as motivated as ever during the summer to finish as Jackson’s first honorable mention in three years.

LaValle spent much of the early part of the season leading the Indians meet after meet. He dealt with adversity halfway through the season after a concussion took him out for a month.

“At the beginning of the season I definitely wanted to place in the top 16,” LaValle said. “But going to the [Central Missouri Invitational] and getting a concussion and missing four and a half weeks, I was really struggling with how I was going to approach the rest of the season. I decided to just dig down and give everything I had and hopefully get top 16. That’s what I did yesterday so I was really pleased with it.”

He worked his way back in time for the SEMO Conference championship meet, where he finished second in the 200 and 500-yard freestyle races to qualify for the state championships.

LaValle going to the state meet was a foregone conclusion in previous seasons. This time around, he had to work his way back from injury to qualify for the final meet of the regular season.

“It was really difficult,” LaValle said. “It was definitely my hardest year to make it to state. Every other year I’ve made it but this year it took to the very end of the season to make it here. I just barely got in and then barely squeezed in the finals.

“It felt like a really long season,” he said, “even though I didn’t practice very much at all.”