Livie Jorgensen began her Hopkinsville High swimming career as an eighth grader looking up to other swimmers from lane one and waiting for her turn to be a senior and swim from lane five.
Her time has now come.
“My best friends were on the swim team last year and they graduated. It felt like yesterday I was in the eighth grade and swimming in lane one,” she said, knowing that the younger swimmers now look up to her for guidance and leadership. “It’s a big responsibility when the younger kids look up to me and it’s now different for me.”
Jorgensen made an immediate impact on the swim team as an eighth grader. She swam a leg on the 200-yard medley relay that set a freshman school record at the region meet and shared in hoisting a region championship team trophy. She later got her first state meet experience with the relay team.
Her freshman year, like many athletes in 2020-21, was turned upside down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jorgensen, like her teammates, persevered and recorded two top-10 finishes at the region and swam on a region champion relay team. She was also on two relay teams that swam at state.
She repeated the same feat as a sophomore — two top 10 individual finishes at region, two second place relay finishes, and two relay swims at the state meet.
Jorgensen claimed another relay win at last year’s region meet in the 200-yard free relay which was part of another busy day in the state meet pool through relays.
Now a senior, Jorgensen’s individual slate includes the 100-yard free and the 200-yard medley and relay legs in the 200-yard free and 200-yard medley.
In this YSE interview, Jorgensen looked back and looked ahead at her time in the pool and life after high school.
