Moxley succeeds in swimming and track

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Jordan Moxley

Top Athlete: Jordan Moxley

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Maplewood senior Jordan Moxley began the biggest race of her high school career with a false step and ended it with a fist pump.

Just before the 50-yard freestyle at the Division II state swim meet, Moxley heard the long whistle telling swimmers to stand by their blocks. Moxley, battling nerves, instead stood on her block.

“I was so nervous, I was shaking,” she said. “I’m the only one up there and all these thoughts are going through my head, like, ‘They’re going to DQ [disqualify] me right now. They’re going to make me come down.’”

They didn’t. The official blew the short whistle, the rest of the swimmers stood on their blocks and Moxley took a deep breath.

“I said, ‘I can’t let this affect me,’” she said.

The 50 free is the shortest race in swimming — to the wall and back — and when Moxley did her flip turn, she saw Gates Mills Gilmour freshman Macie McNichols right next to her and started to freak out.

“All I thought was, ‘I’m usually ahead right now,’” she said. “I just tried to focus and keep my eye on the black line [at the bottom of the pool]. Then when I finished [first], I couldn’t believe it.”

A few weeks later, Moxley followed up the swimming title with a state indoor high jump title, which goes nicely with the outdoor high jump title she won last jump. But while she always planned to run track in college, her late swimming success — combined with a scholarship offer to Ohio State — proved too good to pass up.

“Swimming to me was never going to be it,” she said. “I felt like I was putting in all this hard work for something I was never going to succeed at.

“But my sophomore and junior year kind of opened my eyes to what I could potentially do.”