CARMEL – The first time coach Alex Rayle saw Molly Sweeney on a pool deck, he saw not a swimmer, but an athlete who looked familiar.

Rayle, a national age-group coach of the year, arrived at Carmel after overseeing Thomas Heilman’s development. Heilman, of Crozet, Va., last year competed at the World Championships at age 16. He was the youngest American male swimmer to do so since Michael Phelps in 2001.

Heilman, the coach said, would have been good at any sport. Sweeney, he said, would too.

“We don’t get a lot of that in swimming,” Rayle said. “So when you get that, it’s pretty special.”

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The 5-7 Sweeney is the daughter of Joy (Aschenbrener) and Casey Sweeney, both soccer players who belong to Butler University’s hall of fame. Molly had played travel soccer since she was 8, except for the few months a year she put her toe in the water.

After Sweeney became a year-round swimmer, “she took off,” according to Carmel coach Chris Plumb.

Heading into Thursday/Saturday sectionals, the sophomore can climb halfway to Claire Adams’ record of 16 state titles. As a freshman, Sweeney won all four events, featuring a state record in the 200-yard individual medley and national records in two relays. She had the nation’s No. 2 high school times in both 200 IM and 100-yard breaststroke.

Sweeney conceded she misses soccer. She reasoned she had more potential in swimming.

“The feeling when you’ve worked so hard and you get the results,” she said, “is the best feeling in the world.”

Back in September, instead of playing soccer for the Greyhounds, she was representing Team USA in the World Junior Swimming Championships in Israel. As she watched teammates win medals, she conceded she wasn’t sure she belonged there. She did ... but it had all happened so fast.

It is not one thing. It is everything: genetics, feistiness, family, environment.

An older brother, Quinn, swam for Carmel Swim Club and participated in soccer and swimming for Guerin Catholic. Molly grew up around the Carmel tradition, and in 2026 she could help the team extend its national record to 40 state titles in succession.

She quit soccer after eighth-grade autumn and encountered Rayle’s workouts. They were “super gruesome,” she recalled.

The training accelerated her fitness. So much so, in fact, that she qualified for East winter junior nationals a week before the meet. Her father asked the coach: What do we do now?

“I don’t know. We’ve never had this happen before,” came the reply.

So her family transported her in December 2021 to Greensboro, N.C., where, after recently turning 14, she finished ninth in the 200-yard breaststroke. The next winter, she put it all together, Plumb said. Evidence of how far she has come was a recent week spent training with the junior national team at Colorado Springs, Colo.

Coaches and parents said Sweeney is self-critical, and she acknowledged coping with anxiety. Yet it is the same perfectionist spirit pushing her.

“Everything that makes her crazy also makes her successful,” said her father, a captain in the Indianapolis Fire Department.

Every couple of weeks, Sweeney uses Facetime to interact with Emily Klueh, manager of mental health and emotional wellness for national teams. Klueh, a former Team USA swimmer, is the wife of former Carmel Swim Club star Michael Klueh.

Klueh encouraged Sweeney to write out a plan before each race. That helped her concentrate on one thing, Sweeney said, instead of 10 things. The sports psychologist reminded her swimming is a sport in which no one clocks a best time every time. Sweeney reverted to what she loved about swimming in the first place.

“I just want to go out there and race,” she said. “Sometimes I get so caught up in the times and the cuts and the placements. ‘Like, dude. Just swim.’“

After qualifying for junior worlds in last June’s USA Championships at the Natatorium at IUPUI, she was dissatisfied with results at summer juniors and junior worlds, where she would have won a relay medal if not for a teammate’s disqualification. Also vexing was that her best time in the 200-meter breaststroke — from a March meet — would have been fast enough to medal in Israel.

Her mind-set felt “off,” as did her swimming. Those Facetime sessions allowed her to re-focus.

In December’s East winter juniors at Columbus, Ohio, she swam spectacularly. She won two events: 200-yard breaststroke in 2:07.49, No. 2 ever for girls 15-16, and 200 IM in 1:54.58, only .04 off the Indiana 15-16 record set by Carmel’s Alex Shackell in the same meet a year ago.

“I felt like I had to prove myself again,” she said.

Unlike many breaststrokers, Sweeney also excels in butterfly and freestyle. Athlete, right?

Carmel practices can be intense. Shackell last summer became the first girl out of the Carmel program to win a World Championships medal, and teammates Kayla Han and Lynsey Bowen won golds at junior worlds. Plumb said Sweeney is a great teammate who pushes everybody.

“The thing about her,” Plumb said, “she’s not scared to go out and race.”

February is just the beginning of Sweeney’s racing year. She has June’s Olympic Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium, where she could make a final as a 16-year-old, and perhaps August’s Pan Pacific juniors at Canberra, Australia.

She need not be a Heilman or an Adams or a Shackell. The others have been year-round swimmers longer. She has her own path, Plumb said.

Feet that once wore soccer cleats are paddling toward podiums.

Contact IndyStar correspondent David Woods at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him  on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IHSAA girls swimming: Molly Sweeney is Carmel High's latest star