INDIANAPOLIS
All last week, large poster-sized photos of each member of the Franklin girls swim team were posted on the windows outside of the school’s pool area, a sort of good-luck sendoff as the Grizzly Cubs prepared for the state meet.
One of those pictures in particular spoke way more than 1,000 words — and a lot of those words would likely not have been fit for print.
Senior Bella Ratzlaff’s photo showed her smiling and holding the team’s WWE-style championship belt after she had won the sectional championship in the 100-yard breaststroke.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
Behind a beaming Ratzlaff stood junior teammate Kabria Chapman, hands on her hips with a sullen expression on her face that could have substituted for any number of obscene gestures.
Chapman, who had posted the state’s fastest breaststroke time during the regular season, used the upset loss to fuel herself through this past weekend, which culminated with a second-place state finish in that event. Chapman swam a 1:03.09 in Saturday’s final, just .22 seconds behind winner Sammy Huff of Noblesville.
"I definitely was fired up," Chapman said of her reaction to the sectional defeat, "just because it was one of my teammates, too. It was a great swim from her, and I was definitely excited to race her in prelims and just really to prove myself again."
Chapman and Ratzlaff went head to head in Friday night’s preliminaries, with Chapman claiming the rematch. On Saturday, she reclaimed the school record that Ratzlaff had snatched from her a week ago by going 1:03.57.
The runner-up finish represents a nice little redemption story for Chapman — sort of.
My old* junior varsity soccer and basketball coach, Jeff Allard, had a saying that he would throw at us after big wins — "Happy, but not satisfied." I was reminded of that quote after seeing Chapman race and talking with her Saturday.
(* — Old is right. I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since Allard last yelled at me on a basketball court.)
See, Chapman was happy with finishing second in the state. Fine, happy-ish. She is definitely not satisfied. Immediately after the race, she approached Franklin coach Zach DeWitt and said she was excited to get back to work.
"Getting second place was not what she had drawn up in her own mind," DeWitt said, "and so I can tell you that this level of failure will definitely be a teacher for her carrying forward the next year."
Failure, of course, is a relative term, but Chapman has high expectations — and she’s ready to reach them during her senior season. It should help that the Indiana University commit will be all in on swimming for the first time in her life, having forsaken volleyball in order to focus on excelling in the water.
"Not getting out of shape this next year will really help me," Chapman said. "Last year I took a month off after (the season), swam summer and then took volleyball season off, so I’m really excited to see what I can do next year and I’m just ready to go."
Huff will be back to defend her state title next year — actually, all of this year’s top five return from a race that saw the top four separated by a whopping 26 hundredths of a second — but Chapman motivated to take that last step to the top of the podium in 2021, and DeWitt is confident that she will.
"I just saw a glimpse of her future," he said, "and it’s a really bright one."
Ryan O’Leary is the sports editor for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].
