Sibling Swimmers Excel at the High School Level and Beyond

For Glendora’s Gretchen Jaques and her younger sister Ellie, sports are a family tradition, and it’s this tradition of competition and dedication that has propelled the former into an all-star swimming sensation and the latter into a dual athlete as part of Glendora High School’s varsity swimming and soccer teams.

Their mom swam in high school and their dad played basketball in college.

Ellie is a sophomore and has been a member of the swimming team for the past two years, while Gretchen has already amassed numerous accolades and is finishing up a legendary high school career as she looks forward to attending the University of Texas in the fall and possibly competing in the Olympics one day..

Fresh off her career sweep at last weekend’s at Belmont Plaza Pool, Gretchen spoke about the one factor which motivated the team to take the CIF swimming title.

“This year was definitely a different atmosphere, just because we wanted the team championship so much after getting second last year and having tough luck last year,” said Gretchen, with her younger sibling and teammate sitting a few feet away at the Glendora High team facilities this week.

“As a team we were much more motivated to do everything for the team and be one for all basically,” said Gretchen, reflecting on this year’s team and on all of their accomplishments.

Individually, the girl the local papers have dubbed “The Glendoranator” helped her team score the most points in the 50-team field by taking two individual victories in the 200 yard Individual Medley and the 100 yard breaststroke.

Not too many sprinters are both breaststrokers and freestyle sprinters, since they are two very different events, but Gretchen has mastered both with a blend of diligence and continued practice.

“I've trained very hard in all of the strokes during practice and I work on my turns and under-water portion of my events which is important in any short course sprint event,” she said while at the same time giving a glimpse into her mindset during competitive events like last week’s swimming finals. A regiment she has not deviated from since starting as a young swimmer at the BREA Aquatics Club.

“I just take it one race at a time and focus on that one race and try not to think ahead because then you start to psyche yourself out, it’s just not a good domino effect.”

While last year the team fell short of their championship goals, Gretchen said they were not worried about the high level of competition from other area schools, since the team had undergone similar experiences a year ago.

“Mostly we went in with the attitude to just think about us and just worry about our races and have the other teams worry about us so we would not get distracted and psyche ourselves out.”

Even though Ellie actually became interested in swimming before Gretchen did after they both participated in a summer league team for a couple of years, the former’s passion seems to be rooted in soccer and said she will pursue that sport in college, and for now is content with spending time with her teammates, and making memories with friends and family.

“It’s been great knowing that my sister is such a tremendous athlete and that she’s done so much. She is going to a great college and I look forward to being there for everything else,” said Ellie while admitting she was going to have tough shoes to fill in a leadership role for the team when Gretchen moves on with her career.

“I’m sure I’ll adapt to it,” said Ellie, while adding the team’s greatest asset, their ability to rely on one another will help ease her into the transition.

“As a team it’s been everyone together, there was not one person singled out, we were all gonna win or we were all gonna lose together.”

Both girls pointed to Glendora coach Janet Pollard’s influence on the team’s success and their individual achievements.

“Janet has been such a great influence on all of us, especially after last year with our tough spot,” said Gretchen, “She just kept our heads up, she said ‘we have next year girls, we have next year.'  She’s always helped us, keeping our training on track and our mentality on track and positive.”

“The opportunity is definitely there for her, depending on how hard she works,” said Pollard about Gretchen’s chances to achieve her goal of reaching the Olympics. “She’s mature and very driven and organized.”

 Pollard said Ellie differs from her sister in that she needs to mature a bit more. “She’s an amazing athlete, and she’s very blessed with natural talent.”

As for her immediate future, Gretchen said she plans on training for the NCAA championships in March, then focus more on the Olympics after. Both girls say they both value their time with family, taking part in going out to dinners, going to the race track and living their ordinary lives outside of the pool.