LINDEN — North Montgomery seniors Sam Sheetz and Annabel Anderson both helped the Chargers over the course of their swim and dive careers. Now both of them will get the opportunity to continue on in college as Sheetz signed to continue his diving career at Indiana Wesleyan while Anderson put the pen to paper and signed with Augustana College.
For Sheetz he’s emerged the last two seasons for the Charger boys and the diving team. This past year Sheetz finished in third at the Sagamore Conference meet, Athenian Invite, and the sectional. His third place finish at the sectional allowed Sheetz to end his high school career at the Diving Regional.
“The last two years that I’ve been able to have Eli (diving coach) as my coach, he’s been able to help me progress so much,” Sheetz said. “It really allowed me to believe that this was something I could do in college. Indiana Wesleyan just stood out when I visited there. It shares my beliefs and what I love doing so it felt like a great fit for me.”
Charger coach Erin Yeager has been there every step of the way for Sheetz and has seen him develop to into the diver that he is today. The overall growth that Sheetz has shown these last few years is what the Charger coach has enjoyed seeing the most.
“Watching him and his overall skills these last few years have been an absolute joy,” Yeager said. “He’s really figured out so much about how to get better these last two years and we’ve seen him blossom into an amazing young diver. It was a little sad to lose him in some of the swimming events but he’s been able to really elevate himself and compete at a super high level and I’m excited to see what he can do at the next level.”
Sheetz will also major in design engineering while continuing his diving career. He’ll follow in the footsteps of former Charger Sidney Campbell who just wrapped up her junior season with the Wildcats.
With the addition of Anderson and Sheetz getting to continue their swim and dive careers and having Campbell at IWU, the Chargers are beginning to have a steady athletes getting to swim at the next level. Yeager notes how her other swimmers can look and see that they too can swim at the collegiate level.
“It gives are current swimmers someone they know and can reach out to about the whole college process,” she said. “For them to have someone they can trust and rely on is big because making this choice isn’t an easy one.”
