By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

Beth Channell wanted to go to Thomas More Prep-Marian this fall for high school. She also wanted to swim.

With Channell's help, TMP-Marian will add swimming as a sport for the upcoming school year.

The Monarchs will have girls' swimming as a one-year trial run in the spring and could add a boys' team the next year, according to Monarch Athletic Director Gene Flax.

TMP-Marian will be one of the smallest schools in the state to participate in swimming.

"It's a recruiting tool when you can have programs that bigger schools have," Flax said.

While she has not yet been approved by the Salina Dioceses, Pam Channell, Beth's mother, is the likely coach. Pam Channell, a TMP-Marian graduate, could coach a one-person team.

"Whether she is the only one or not, we don't know yet," Pam Channell said. "After enrollment, I will be making contacts and see who else is interested."

The new team presents a unique arrangement. Pam Channell's husband and Beth's father is Chris Channell, a Hays High School grad and the current Indian swim coach.

But Beth, a freshman this fall, didn't want to go to Hays High.

"I kind of looked at both schools and I kind of wanted to go to TMP just because of the Catholic religion and stuff," she said Saturday afternoon at Hays Aquatic Park.

"Beth initially really wanted to go to TMP," Pam Channell added.

Beth looked into joining a co-op with either Great Bend or Junction City's swim teams, but the opportunities weren't feasible. Beth Channell and Flax said a partnership with Hays High wasn't going to work either.

Flax was approached about adding swimming at TMP-Marian in the winter.

"We started talking to TMP about maybe starting their own team since you only have to have one swimmer, so it worked out good, they ran it past the board," Beth Channell said.

The board approved and the girls' team will have a trial year. In a trial run, Flax said the Monarchs can compete in postseason events and at the state level. All costs will be paid for by the swimmers' families.

"There is supposed no cost for the first year, and that is one of the reasons that we thought we could do it on a trial basis," Flax said.

The boys' team has been tabled for a year, but Beth Channell said several boys, including Nathan Lawson, Payne Reif and Aaron Bean, are interested in swimming.

"We had some guys, that if Beth can swim, then what about us?," Channell said. "We are in the process of getting a boys team, which is awesome."

Pam Channell hopes to tap into TMP-Marian's large base of foreign students for the girls' squad and the potential guys' team, too. Flax said some had already expressed interest.

"This is a huge sport internationally," Pam Channell said.

As of now, Beth Channell is the only swimmer - and a talented one. She started to swim at the Fort Hays pool with her dad when she was a few years old and participated in her first swim competition when she was six at Wilson pool.

"That meet was interesting, I didn't drown," Channell said with a laugh. "That was a good thing."

Channell progressed and has become one of the best young swimmers in western Kansas. At the combined Western Kansas Swim Club meet last season, Channell won every event she entered except the breastroke.

This year, Channell, 13, competes against swimmers one to five years older. At Saturday's Western Kansas Swim Club intra-squad meet in Hays, Channell won two events. She finished runner-up to Dodge City's Zhu Zhu Lundin Daniels (who is a year older) in three others.

Channell has bettered the qualifying times for the Div. II Missouri Valley Championships in Derby later this month in the 50-meter freestyle and 100 butterfly.

"This is my sport," she said. "I love it."

And now she'll have a chance to swim for the Monarchs.