Palmer swimmers keep it all in the family

PALMER — Palmer High School will remember the Snelders family.

Millie Snelders, a senior at Palmer this year, and her brother Max, a sophomore, are two top performers on the Moose swim team. Millie, a captain this year, swam the 50-yard freestyle and the 100 breaststroke at the state championships last year, and Max swam the 100 backstroke, as a freshman. They were two of three Palmer swimmers to make it to the state meet.

Now, as Millie nears the end of her senior season, she and Max are looking to do more than qualify.

At the Palmer Invitational this weekend, Millie came in second in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 breaststroke, and Max took second in the 50 and 100 freestyle races. Both are hoping to finish in the top 10 in those events at state this year.

Max and Millie are come from a family of swimmers. Their older brother John was a standout swimmer at Valdez High School, and their younger sister Gretchen, and eighth-grader this year, will soon be making a name for herself at Palmer High.

“She’s better than all of us,” Max said, of Gretchen.

Mother Heather Snelders has also been an integral part of her children’s swimming careers, driving them to practice and acting as an official referee at more than a few of their meets.

She’s the reason the kids started swimming in the first place, Millie said.

When the family lived in Valdez — Millie swam for the Buccaneers her freshman year, before the family moved to Palmer — they had a boat. Heather Snelders didn’t know how to swim at the time, and she didn’t want her kids to have the same lack at her age, nor did she want them on the boat without those skills.

“She said, ‘My kids aren’t gonna die in the ocean,’ so she put us on the swim team,” Millie recalled. “I just really like it so I’ve stuck with it ever since.”

Millie was in fourth grade when she started swimming. She played volleyball and soccer, too, but by the time she entered high school, she knew swimming was her thing.

“I love working out and when I swim, it just makes me feel better,” she said.

Swimming was also the best way, she found, to get out any excess energy, anger or frustration.

Max, who played hockey, baseball and basketball when he was younger, said he’s come to like competition with himself in swimming the best.

“I’m always trying to beat my own times and see how I can improve,” he said.

Getting tips on technique and getting in top physical shape for swimming aren’t the only elements involved in personal improvement, Millie pointed out. Swimming, like cross country running, is a mind game — and she has it figured out.

“I’ve conquered the mental side of swimming,” she said. “A lot of people have problems because they think they can’t do something, but I’ve learned how to say, ‘I’m gonna do this, and it’s gonna happen.’”

However, one thing that probably won’t happen for her again, she said, is beating her younger brother.

“When we were in Valdez, I was always faster than him and he would try to beat me. Then we came to Palmer, and at practice he started to slowly catch up.”

And then last year, he finally surpassed her.

Max said he’s looked up to his older siblings, enjoying the healthy, familial competition over the years. But for a while, he doubted his potential.

“I thought she would always be better,” he said.

The time each of them has put in at the pool outside of the high school season has paid off. From November to August, Max and Millie swim for Northern Lights Swim Club under longtime coach Matt Hanley (as many successful Valley swimmers do).

At a club meet this year, Millie said she swam the 200-yard individual medley in 2:17.96 — almost two seconds faster than the Palmer High School record of 2:19.19, set by Anne Penniston in 1987. Unfortunately, she hasn’t swam that fast in a high school meet. Not yet. Her current personal record is 2:22.31.

“I really enjoy the 200 IM because … I like all the strokes and it’s a challenge,” she said.

Still, she chose not to race her favorite event at the region and state meets last year, and regretted it. When the results came in, she realized that her best 200 IM time that season could have made her more of a contender in that event than the 100 breaststroke.

Because of that kind of experience — trying to guess which competition will afford them the best chances of winning a given meet — Max and Millie both said their biggest challenge in the last couple years has been deciding which events to enter.

Thankfully, that will more than likely be determined for them in college.

Though he sometimes misses playing basketball, Max said he’s realized that, at this point, he’s more likely to be successful in swimming. He hasn’t committed to becoming a college athlete just yet, but his sister said she’s narrowed her school choices down to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which has an NCAA Division II swim team, and the University of Wyoming, which has a Division I team.

Palmer coach Chris Morgan spoke well of her athletes.

“Max and Millie set their goals and expectations high,” Morgan wrote in an email. “They make their goals reality and not just dreams.”

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.