OCALA – As Nature Coast sophomore Elisa Bethke rattled off the injuries she had to overcome this season, she began having trouble remembering them all.
So how did she feel at the end of her last event Saturday night, in the finals of the 2A Swimming and Diving State Championships at FAST Aquatic Center in Ocala?
“Very tired,” Bethke said with a laugh. She had just wrapped up the best season of any Hernando County swimmer in 2024, as she was one of only two from the county to reach states and the only one to advance out of prelims.
Though she did not make the championship finals, which would have assured a top-eight placing and a state medal, she swam two consolation finals for the 50-yard freestyle and 100 backstroke. “I think it wasn’t too bad, but I think I could have definitely improved,” Bethke said. “I think I can definitely practice more during club season and then come back even better next year, and hopefully make it into ‘A’ finals and medal.”
Unfortunately it has been a season filled with time spent in physical therapy as well as in the pool. She listed a dislocated kneecap, a shoulder injury, a bicep issue and a swollen ACL. She said the shoulder has “just been hurting a lot, and sometimes my knee starts hurting again.”
Yet there she was at states in two events in which she had automatically qualified. She was a district and regional champion in the 50 free and a district champ and regional runner-up in the 100 back. As a freshman, she made it to states as part of the 200-free relay.
“She’s had some injuries, so we’ve been fighting that all season,” Nature Coast swim coach Robert Rasmussen said. “The biggest thing is just the doctors, her mom and me getting her in the pool when she could and the determination for what she needed to do to get here tonight.”
She placed 10th in the 50 prelims with a time of 24.95 and ended up 13th in the final with a 25.11. In the 100 back prelims, she was 12th (1:00.72), then 13th in the final (1:00.52). “It feels good, but I know I definitely could have done better if it wasn’t for my injuries,” Bethke said. “But I’m still pretty happy with what my times were.”
Next year, she wants to reduce her times to 23 seconds in the 50 and 58 seconds in the 100 back and bring home a state medal.
“As a sophomore, there’s opportunity she can see in the future and you just got to keep building from there,” Rasmussen said. “She’s got two more years of high school. There’s lots of opportunities to get back and get on the podium for next year.”
The other county state qualifier was another Nature Coast girl, junior Ellagrace Galioto, who was also on that 200-free relay that made states in 2023.
Making it back to states on her own, she came in 22nd in the 200 free (2:02.91) and 18th in the 100 free (55.59). “I know at the beginning (of the season) they said they wanted to go back to states,” Rasmussen said of Bethke and Galioto. “I told them, you’ve got to be pushed to get to where we are today.
“… This is the first time I’ve been back (coaching swimming) in five years. I coached eight years before. This is my first state swimmers. As a first year back, it was already set for them to be here already in my opinion, but trying to push them, get them to where they need to be, for all my swimmers. There should have been a couple more here, but we have the only two from Hernando County that made it here
today.”
