Bishop Ahr's Hardy is Home News Tribune Girls Swimmer of the Year

The stars dot the predawn sky and most of the world is still safely curled up in a blanket of slumber.

Sarah Hardy, however, is always bright-eyed and eager to hit the water.

It’s the beginning of another long day of classes and at least one more practice with her club team later on, but somehow Hardy’s infectious exuberance permeates this pool and perks up her teammates on the Bishop Ahr swim team.

“The boys and girls are in the water by 6 a.m.,” Coach Amanda Miller said. “Sarah is sunshine. That’s unusual for a high school student to begin with. For someone who’s beginning their day with what will be two and sometimes three practices, to bring that much enthusiasm to the decks in the morning is a nice thing. She’s definitely a leader in and out of the pool. She just loves the high school experience, and we’re lucky to have her.”

The Home News Tribune Girls Swimmer of the Year has just finished putting the finishing touches on a stellar junior season.

She placed third in the 200 IM at the Meet of Champions earlier this month. She won the 200 IM and the backstroke at the Greater Middlesex County Championships, where she also anchored the Trojans’ first-place 200 freestyle relay and swam the opening leg of the team’s gold medal-winning 200 medley relay.

On her way to winning those medals, her mettle was tested. Try as she might, she did not achieve any personal best times this season. And, her two-year reign as 200 IM champ at the Meet of Champions came to an end as she took third in 2:03.22, behind Cherry Hill East’s Grace Yoon (2:02.51) and Mainland’s Katie McClintock (2:02.99).

As a freshman, she won the Meet of Champions in a then personal best 2:02.44. As a sophomore, she shaved .01 off the time at the GMC Championships. Her performance at this year’s Meet of Champions was her best time of the season.

Hardy remains philosophical about the capricious nature of the sport and determined to work even harder to bring her times down.

“I want to keep doing better, and it’s really hard because there’s a lot of different factors that go into a race,” she said. “Sometimes you can’t even tell the reasons why you add time or the reasons you dropped time. It just sometimes happens. I guess since I haven’t had a best time, I’ve been a little frustrated and hard on myself. I’ve learned to accept it and keep pushing through it.”

Miller said considering the maturity Hardy displayed, her third-place finish was in some ways more impressive than her two first-place finishes. Miller and assistant coaches Dave Arva and Chris Lewandowski waited to see her reaction. Hardy took it in stride, kept her head high and wore a smile on her face.

“Dave and Chris and I, we were all like, ‘OK,’” Miller said. “Is she disappointed? Yes. Every swimmer wants to swim their best. Every swimmer wants to retain their title. But, she has a target on her back and I think that just makes her even more remarkable that it’s all right, moving on to the next event.

"That’s really her attitude. Moving on to the next thing. No time for any kind of disappointment. Did you do a good job? Were you ready for it? OK.”

Predawn practices, afternoon workouts, meets at night – it seems Hardy is hardly away from the pool. Her job? She teaches novice swimmers at the Metuchen YMCA, of course.

“It’s completely opposite of what I do because normally I’m in the water,” Hardy said. “But it’s nice and it’s rewarding seeing people learning to swim, especially the adults. The kids tend to be easy, but the adults have that fear of drowning. So, to help them overcome that is nice.”

When she wants to hang out with friends and unwind, she often goes to – you guessed it – the beach where she takes a dip in the ocean. She figures the beach will be one of the first places she heads when she gets her drivers license in June. Hardy gets plenty of practice driving. In fact, on the way to a recent meet in Pennsylvania, she got behind the wheel.

“When I went to my meet in Lancaster, my dad let me drive for most of it,” Hardy said. “I drove for an hour and half. I didn’t drive the first half hour because I thought I was going to nap, but then I got bored. So, he let me drive and we got there in one piece.”

She already is looking forward to her senior season. As her bulging trophy case can attest, there aren’t too many more things for Hardy to prove. Still, she is focused on working hard and already is thinking about what her goals will be.

“I have had this long-term goal of going under 2 minutes in the 200 IM,” she said. “So, that is kind of my ultimate goal, even if it takes me to college to do it. But, (my goal would be to) just to drop time. There’s nothing else personally that I want. I just want to get some best times and take it from there.”