Marietta’s Kayla Stewart, Owen Zundell to swim for Mount Union
Photo by Jordan Holland Marietta’s Owen Zundell, center, committed to continuing his swimming career at the University of Mount Union.
Courtesy photo Marietta’s Kayla Stewart, front row, second from right, committed to contuining her swimming career at the University of Mount Union.
Photo by Jordan Holland Marietta’s Owen Zundell, center, committed to continuing his swimming career at the University of Mount Union.
Courtesy photo Marietta’s Kayla Stewart, front row, second from right, committed to contuining her swimming career at the University of Mount Union.
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Two Marietta High swimmers are headed to the University of Mount Union to continue their academic and athletic careers.
Kayla Stewart and Owen Zundell have been teammates in the pool since they first started swimming, and they've both committed to continuing that trend with the Purple Raiders.
"The opportunity to swim at the college level for me is amazing because it opens up so many windows of opportunity to get faster in the sport," Stewart said. "With double the pool time there is a lot of room to grow my speed and chances to race other fast swimmers.
"I decided on Mount Union because I was looking for a school that had a strong physician's assistant program, but also a place where I could continue swimming. After looking at all of my options, Mount Union had everything I was looking for."
Zundell is leaning toward going into the mechanical engineering program.
"I was looking for a place to swim," Zundell said. "I never really had any single place decided, but I knew I wanted to swim. One of my best friends of all-time, Shawn Powers, he went to Mount Union and really enjoyed it there. I was looking around and I went up there. I met the swim team and it was a great group of people. After that visit I put down my deposit."
Like Stewart, Zundell is looking forward to the amount of time he'll be able to work and practice in the pool. Tiger swimmers lost their home venue in 2019 when the Marietta YMCA permanently shut down its pool. They had to travel to Parkersburg for limited practices.
"I've been swimming ever since I was 5 or 6," Zundell said. "Our pool got taken away from us I think my freshman or sophomore year. It's been quite a struggle, so I'm not at my peak of potential I feel like I could be at. In college, I'm excited to see what I can do with a coach whose full-time job will be coaching me."
Mount Union's head coach is Eric Mojock.
Zundell's father, Ryan, is the head coach for the Marietta Marlins and has had a major impact on both his son and Stewart.
"He has built me into a strong swimmer for the past 13 years," Stewart said. "He is a great example of a leader and to me is like a second father."
A career highlight for Stewart came this past winter.
"I finally qualified for Division 1 districts individually in my 100 butterfly," she said. "I had been working hard on this goal since freshman year."
Stewart's best time in the 100 butterfly is 1 minute, 1.49 seconds. She is also strong in the 50 freestyle, with a personal record of 25.98.
Zundell's favorite swimming memory happened during his freshman year.
"At Kenyon College, I was swimming the 500 freestyle," he said. "I was with a guy the entire race. I was at his heels, and on the last 25 we flipped at the same time. We came up, took a breath, looked each other dead in the eyes and we sprinted back and I won by like 10 one-hundredths of a second."
Zundell's PR in the 500 freestyle is 5:15, and his 200 freestyle PR is 1:53. He's excited to swim at the collegiate level, and is looking forward to having a familiar face in Stewart going into the experience with him.
"We've been swimming on the same team ever since we first started a long time ago," Zundell said. "It's kind of cool that every stage of our life we've been on the same team, continuing in college."
Jordan Holland can be reached at jholland@mariettatimes.com.