As the 2024-25 Swim & Dive team enters its seasonal halfway point, the sophomore continues to impress.
Metsala’s conference records include ninth in the 100-yard Individual medley, second in the 50-yard butterfly and 18th in the 50-yard freestyle.
“She’s very driven, she sees something that she wants and makes a plan of attack and goes for it, that’s something that’s fun to coach in an athlete. she’s willing to do the work,” said Head Coach Anneliesse Bruns.
Last season in her first meet as a first-year Metsala won in the 100-yard breaststroke by a full seven seconds and nearly broke a 22-year-old record in the 200-yard Individual medley.
“I was going to go to MSUM, and then I switched to Concordia. I took about nine months off swimming, and I never took a week off of swimming in my whole entire career. So, I thought I was gonna be done swimming and to come in and hold times was pretty big for me. It kind of made me find my love for swimming again,” said Metsala.
Despite Metsala’s nine-month hiatus she ended her season in the MIAC conference finals with an eighth place finish in the 100-yard butterfly.
“We knew she was gonna be a competitor, as soon as we started having talks about her coming here, just the success she had in high school. She broke a lot of records at her high school Princeton and so we knew that she had the potential and a lot of depth in different events,” said Bruns.
During her high school career Metsala broke records in the 200-yard freestyle, 200-yard Individual medley, 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard breaststroke.
“I’ve been swimming since I was seven years old. I have two older brothers. We all are swimmers. So growing up swimming with them, we all swim different events, and so we’d always try to race each other And we swam every single club team, every practice we were at together. So, I mean, that was kind of my love with them,” said Metsala
So far this season Metsala has shown zero signs of slowing down ranking high in conference events, marking scores as high as the third fastest in events such as the 100 and 200-yard individual medley.
“Callie has been an incredibly inspiring presence in my life. Her talent in the pool is nothing short of extraordinary, and I feel genuinely fortunate to share the lanes with someone of her caliber. Beyond her athletic abilities, Callie is a remarkable friend and an uplifting person to be around—her positivity and kindness make every practice more enjoyable,” said fellow swimmer Estella Zwietelhofer.
Metsala has attributed this season’s success to her rigorous off-season training as well as support from the rest of the team.
“I actually never had a real supportive team before coming to Concordia, and that was a big change, especially to this year. It’s really good, because they know what I want, They know what events I want to go to at a certain time in. They like to figure out any way to push. And that’s really cool, because I never had that. It used to just be me,” said Metsala.
