Unstoppable!

Grafton High School senior Allison Garncarz was determined to compete in the state swim meet this season. Neither injury nor infection nor illness nor quarantine were going to keep her from the Waukesha South Natatorium.

But during a season marred by setback after setback, even her parents Scott and Kristin doubted she would make it. “Her mom and I had pretty much given up,” Scott said.
Allison never did.

She worked hard during summer to prepare for her final season as a Black Hawk, doing home workouts because Covid-19 had caused all area pools to close.

Everything that happened afterward was an unpleasant surprise. Fate was as creative as it was cruel in trying to stop Allison’s quest.

First, it was a broken collarbone, suffered while screws and plate from a previous break were still in place. The first time she injured her shoulder was when she collided with an opponent chasing down a loose basketball. That kind of tenacity would come in handy after the second injury.

This time, a screw was put back into the bone. The operation was a success, but recovery not so much. Allison got an infection that pushed back the healing process.

She quickly tried to get back into form by swimming with teammates who swim year round.

“I was super determined after missing the first part of the season,” she said.

Her first meet was at North Shore Conference rival Port Washington on Sept. 15, and it came with a stipulation. She had to jump into the pool from the side instead of the elevated starting blocks because jumping into the water from so high hurt her shoulder.

“I was at a disadvantage,” she said. “But I ended up still winning first place in that  race (the 50-yard freestyle). It gave me a lot of hope.”

Then, Allison got mono.

“One doctor said her season was done,” her father said.

Another doctor advised her to go back when symptoms subsided. That took a while. Allison felt fatigued for a long time.

“I couldn’t even work out or anything because I was so sick and tired,” she said.

But she wasn’t going to throw in the towel.

“That just kind of pushed my determination even more,” she said.

She returned to the team and swam in a couple of more meets. Then, one day when she was about to leave for practice, her mother got a phone call from the school. Allison had to go into quarantine due to close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19.

That only ratcheted up her determination.

“I figured there was no way I was letting this affect my sectionals,” she said.

This time, Allison could swim while she was away from the team. Her coach told her to find a pool for workouts. Teammates sent her photos of the sets they did in practice.

She prepared at the Kettle Moraine YMCA in West Bend as best she could. By then, she was able to jump off starting blocks, but the YMCA pool doesn’t have any.

She had given herself one advantage, however. All the hard work she did over summer helped her get back in shape faster, she said.

Her first meet in her comeback was the sectional at Plymouth, one of four meets across Wisconsin that determine qualifiers for the Division 2 state meet.

“I had only swum in three meets the entire season,” she said. “I was a little more nervous than usual. I didn’t know what my time would be.”

She wasn’t the only one. Her parents were on pins and needles.

“I’ve never been so nervous for sectionals than this year,” Scott said. “It was tense. She kept her head better than my wife and I did.”

Allison had to overcome one more challenge. Her body was rejecting the sutures inserted during surgery and made her scar puff up. A steroid shot into the scar helped, but the swimsuit still rubbed against it so she wore a Band-Aid.

Not much of that mattered once she got in the water. She qualified for state in a trio of events. She was third in the 100 freestyle in 56.58 seconds, fourth in the 50 freestyle in 25.48 and helped the 200 freestyle relay to second in 1:42.93.

This was the first time she qualified for state in two individual events, and getting there felt like a bigger deal than it had before, Allison said. Last season, she made it to state in the 50 and 200 free and 200 medley relays.

“I surprised myself in the 100. It was my best time ever,” she said.

Her 50 time was close to her time last year, and her 50 split in the relay was OK, she said.

At state, the Band-Aid came off.

“I didn’t want anything to make me slower. I just fought through it,” she said.

Allison wanted to finish in the top six and make the podium, but the 200 freestyle relay took seventh, less than a second from a medal. She finished 12th in the 50 freestyle and 16th in the 100 freestyle.

Since spectators in the natatorium were limited to parents while others had to watch on TV while socially distancing in a nearby gym, she missed one of her favorite parts of the meet — “looking up at all those people there to watch you swim, especially the Grafton section.”

But she had made it to state.

“After everything, I was just glad to be there,” she said. “It turned out better than I thought it would after all that stuff happened.”

While Scott said Allison can be “the kindest, nicest girl around” but not someone he would want to compete against in a sport, he and his wife discovered something about their daughter along the way.

“We learned a lesson not to give up on Allison,” he said.

Entering high school, Allison didn’t imagine she would swim at state. She played volleyball in eighth grade and considered doing that, but her friends joined the swim team.

“Oh, OK. I’ll just do that, then,” she said. “I wanted to be with my friends.”

Grace Hamm, a 2019 graduate who became one of Allison’s best friends, helped talk her into it at a high school event when freshmen choose activities to join.

But Allison didn’t know much about swimming.

“I had to learn the strokes freshman year,” she said. “I learned to do a flip-turn correctly for the first time this year.”

As a sophomore, she missed going to state by 4/100ths of a second.

“That fire and buildup really carried over into the next season. I was really mad I didn’t make it,” she said.

Some of her friends left the team over the years, but not Allison. “The fact that I’m really competitive helped me stick with it,” she said.

Allison is now playing basketball, a sport she has loved since third grade. She chose to attend school virtually to decrease her chances of being quarantined.        Her passion for hoops involves an injury too. A fractured vertebrae in gymnastics led her to try the sport. She also likes music.

“I definitely encourage her to keep playing piano,” Scott said. “To my knowledge, she hasn’t been injured doing that.”

Allison wants to attend college in the South, perhaps in Georgia. She isn’t sure what to study but she joked the medical field is a possibility since “I’ve had so much experience with it.”