Amid the beaming white lights and bright blue water, Aria Grossenbach’27 takes a breath. As she dives with ease and precision, the cheers of her teammates echo from the sidelines. For Grossenbach, this routine has become second nature, yet at each swimming meet she feels immense excitement to push her team forward.“I’ve been swimming on a team since I was around six years old,” Grossenbach said. “I started with a summer league, just doing that for fun in the summertime. When I was in third grade, I started doing club swimming here at Stevenson.”

But swimming wasn’t Grossenbach’s first choice. As a young child, she participated in more than ten other sports, from water polo to cross country.

“I’ve dabbled in most sports and there was a point where I was really invested in ice skating,” Grossenbach said. “But the one that really stuck and had been a constant throughout my life was swimming.”

Now in high school, Grossenbach is part of Stevenson’s varsity Swim and Dive team, where her commitment to honing her skills has paid off. During Grossenbach’s freshman year, she broke the 50 yard freestyle record with 23.41 seconds and the 100 yard freestyle record with 51.37 seconds at the Illinois High School Association Girls (IHSA) State Championships. A year later, the swimmer placed first in both the 50 yard and 100 yard freestyle at the IHSA Girls Sectionals competition, while also setting two North Suburban Conference records of 22.92 and 49.74 seconds, respectively.

“I wasn’t expecting to break records my freshman year.” Grossenbach said. “It was definitely a goal of mine, but being able to do that was just really special for me. Now, for me, it’s trying to see if I’m able to re-break them, get faster and set the bar higher for the next person who’s going to try to break them.”

Grossenbach wasn’t the only one excited for her win, as her mom, an avid swim parent, stood in the stands cheering. For Marissa Grossenbach, she said that she has always loved watching her daughter swim, with one memory sticking out at a meet in Indiana.

“I was in the stands videoing her swim, leaning over the railing,” Marissa Grossenbach said. “[When she won], I was so excited, I was screaming and jumping, my phone flew out of my hands and, luckily, landed in the stands and not into the pool below. I turned around and all the parents were staring at me.”

Before her freshman year success, Grossenbach notes that a defining moment in her swim career arrived when she was able to compete in the 2023 USA Swimming Futures Championship, a national competition. There, she took home a gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle.

“I’ve had a few big travel meets that I’ve gotten to go to that are really cool,” Grossenbach said. “I went to Fargo, North Dakota before I came into my freshman year. I thought ‘wow, this is really cool. I want to be able to keep doing this.’”

Grossenbach’s love for swimming also grew from a strong connection to her team at Stevenson, which came after dedicating most of her off-school hours to practices and training. She commits to practices before and after school, with additional training on Saturday afternoons. Grossenbach recalls that during those practices, she felt the most connected with her teammates, fostering strong relationships day and night.

“We’re tied together,” Grossenbach said. “We’re always together because we’re at the pool from 6:00 to 7:30 in the morning, and then until like 6:00 at night. So we’re just all spending so much time together and we just get very close throughout the season.”

According to Grossenbach, another big support system comes from her coaches, Head Coach Ayrton Kasemets, and Assistant Varsity Coach Jennifer King. In every practice and meet, she feels grateful in the community she’s found. 

“The coaches that I’ve had have been very crucial to my success,” Grossenbach said. “And really just the whole team has been very supportive of each other because it would definitely be a lot harder to make it through those practices if I was there alone, or if there were less of us. We have such a great environment and we really support each other and celebrate each other when we achieve our goals.”

Outside of school, Grossenbach is still dedicated to swimming and also teaches other swimmers at Lincolnshire swim club. She utilizes her skills to mentor younger athletes to gain confidence in the water.

“Aria not only works hard at her craft, but in the last couple of years, has become a coach and mentor to younger swimmers,” Marissa Grossenbach said. “She also was elected onto the board for Illinois Swimming where she is helping share the athlete perspective and grow the programs offered to swimmers in the state.”

Looking forward, Grossenbach is excited to find another swimming community in college. While she notes that she doesn’t have a particular school in mind, she looks forward to potentially swimming at a D1 program.

“I’m definitely looking to continue in college and I’m actually in the recruiting process right now, so I’ve been going on college visits since June,” Grossenbach said. “This summer is when coaches could start reaching out to you. So it’s been really crazy talking to coaches and going on visits.”

But currently, Grossenbach is still fully committed to supporting her team in every practice and meet. Despite her already immense success and talent, she believes she will never stop trying to improve her times and challenging herself. 

“I am always trying to get a little bit faster, get my times a little bit better, but also, get more points for the team,” Grossenbach said, “I want to help us, as a team, do as well as we can.”