Bennett sisters playing key roles for Moorpark

Since Amber and Summer Bennett began competing in swimming eight years ago, they've been nearly inseparable.

Luckily for the Moorpark High girls' swim team, the sisters are now distancing themselves from the rest of their opponents.

The Musketeers are in the hunt for a Marmonte League title thanks to Amber, a junior, and Summer, a sophomore.

The two sisters make up half of Moorpark's relay team, which holds Ventura County's thirdquickest time in the 200 with a time of 1:56.87. In the relays, Amber does the backstroke while Summer does the butterfly.

"They're both really good kids," Moorpark head coach Jason Nevis said.

"They're very respectable, and they have a huge eagerness to swim. As a coach, you can't really ask for anything more."

Swimming individual races, the Bennett sisters have also been stellar during meets.

Amber holds the league's third-fastest time in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:11.00, and the 100 free with a mark of 56 seconds.

Summer Bennett is second in the league in the 200 IM, less than a second behind Westlake's Meagan Norling-Christensen.

The younger Bennett is also third in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:01.99.

With the Bennett sisters contributing, Moorpark's girls were able to finish in fifth place two weeks ago at the Ventura County Swim Championships.

While the two are having similar success in the pool, Nevis says the two couldn't be more different out of the water.

"Amber is shy, while Summer is a little more outgoing," Nevis said. "They both have their own swim coaches at the club level, so when they met me they had different reactions.

"Summer was a little easier to get along with at first because she was younger and she didn't know any better. Amber was a little more careful. It was almost like she was saying, 'Who is this guy?'"

Nevis said it didn't take long to gain Amber's trust.

"I basically called her out on her shyness," Nevis said with a laugh. "I started joking around with her, and before long I think she was saying to herself, 'Oh, he's just here to help.'"

These days, both sisters now enjoy swimming for Moorpark even more than at the club level.

"CLASS Aquatics is like a family to us, but there is less pressure swimming for Moorpark," Summer said.

"It's really nice working for a team and seeing other people cheer for you at meets."

Amber was the first of the two sisters to get into swimming when she was 9.

"I'd tried a whole bunch of other sports, but I wasn't very good at any of them," Amber said. "I took a lot of lessons early on just to learn how to swim, but I started to like it right away.

"I went to the Daland Swim School, and that's where I started to get into the backstroke. Peter Daland thought my stroke was natural and that everything flowed well," she said.

After watching her older sister continue to get better at swimming, it wasn't long before Summer joined her in the pool.

"I was playing soccer at the time, but I realized it wasn't for me," Summer said. "I saw that Amber was having a lot of fun swimming, so I thought I'd give it a try."

Two years later, the sisters would join CLASS Aquatics, and they've been with the club team ever since. Although Amber began swimming first, she now says Summer is a better aquatics athlete.

"I look up to her now," Amber says. "I used to get nervous before meets, but now I talk with her because she does a good job of calming me down. She's helped me a lot."

The two sisters say their main goal is the same—to make it to the CIF finals.

"I haven't ever made it to CIF before, so it's somewhere I really want to be before I graduate from Moorpark," Amber said. "It would mean a lot for this school. It's what we practice every day for."