ARLINGTON – An Arlington girl who used to be without a swim team is now on one of the best in the country.
Morgan Ginnis, who graduated from Arlington High School, which doesn’t have a swim team, now swims for the University of Arizona. Her 200-meter freestyle relay team placed fifth in the nation at the NCAA championships. Since her team placed in the top eight, each member received All-America status.
Her father, Mark, said she was competing against the “fastest in the world,” including Olympics standouts Katie Ledecky and Simone Manuel of Stanford. “She swam quite a bit against them” this year, her dad said, since they are all in the Pac-12 conference.
While he wasn’t able to go to the NCAA finals, Mark said he did go to the conference championships in Federal Way. Along with the relay, Morgan competes individually in the 50- and 100-freestyle races.
Mark said she didn’t do well in Federal Way.
“She messed up on the start, and in the fifty free you can’t mess up at all” because there isn’t time to make up for it, he said.
Her first two years of college she went to the University of New Mexico, where she was named Freshman of the Year and Most Valuable Player by teammates and coaches. She placed sixth in the 50-free in 2015 and third in 2016 at the Mountain West Conference Championships. She also qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 50-free.
Morgan left New Mexico for Arizona when her coach went to Japan after her sophomore year.
Because Arlington didn’t have a swim team, she had to work extra hard just to swim in college at all. She had to get out of school an hour early each day to drive to Federal Way to swim. She went there seven days a week. Because she was willing to do that, the New Mexico coach gave her a shot.
High school was not the only time she was without a team.
She started swimming when she was 4 for the Marysville Marlins. When she was older she wanted to swim in Lake Stevens, but Mark said Marysville would not release her to do that.
“There was a big fight at the time,” her dad said, adding Morgan was fine with it since she could still swim at the elite level in Federal Way.
