Forget size. Measure the heart, and the times, for Black Hills swimmer Rylee Denney

Rylee Denney doesn’t have the long body and huge shoulders you see in every lane when you watch Olympic swimming on television. At 5-foot-2, even when she gets off the bus with her Black Hills High School teammates, she’s one of the smallest.

“Rylee’s always going to be limited by her height, but she’s never going to be limited by her heart,” Wolves coach Henry Valz said.

That is to say, Denney doesn’t acknowledge many limits. Last season as a junior, she tried high school swimming for the first time and added four Class 2A state meet podium finishes to an extensive resume of club success.

“The most important thing is my dedication to the sport and my will to keep trying. There’s been some ups and downs, but I try to work my hardest every day,” said Denney, who logs roughly 12 hours and 25,000 yards in the pool weekly.

Last year at the state meet, she finished sixth in the 200-yard individual medley in 2 minutes, 17.98 seconds. She also contributed to two school-record-setting Black Hills’ relay teams that reached the finals. The Wolves were fourth in the 200 free relay (1:43.64) and eighth in the 400 free relay (3:54.27), ultimately finishing eighth in the overall team standings.

“It was incredible, I had lots of fun,” Denney said. “My teammates were great to be around, it was an amazing atmosphere. It was my first time at state and I can’t wait to go again.”

Anchor Emma Prybylski, a 4.0 student who Valz calls the “heart and soul” of Black Hills team, returns along with other relay veterans Brielle Bryan and Kalli Bishop.

Denney’s best chance to shine as an individual comes in her specialty event, the 100 butterfly. She finished third a year ago in 59.36. Champion Kira Crane of Klahowya graduated, leaving Denney and runner-up Chloe Partsch of Olympic as leading contenders for the 2018 title.

“I hope to swim a 57, which would be dropping two seconds, and hopefully would get me onto the podium in first place,” Denney said.

Many top swimmers, including Denney, who swims for the Poseidon team in Centralia where her mom Kelly is a coach, forgo a year or more of their high school careers to focus on club. Valz actually taught her chemistry class before finally getting a chance to work with her in the pool.

Both Denney and Prybylski recently swam at USA Swimming’s Western Zone Championships in Clovis, California. Returning to the high school ranks forces them to compete in a more “well-rounded” environment, Valz said.

“In high school, everybody’s going to swim at least one freestyle relay and everybody’s going to swim at least one event that’s an off-event for them individually,” he said. “Rylee does it without hesitation, without question, at full speed.”

Denney, who expects to continue swimming in college, has found ways to combine training for the butterfly and freestyle.

“For butterfly, I tend to work my underwater, my upper catch and my pull, which can also be translated into my freestyle,” she said. “It’s the same stroke up at the top and has the same underwater kick. I focus on that and make sure my cardio endurance is ready to go.”

A Running Start student planning an eventual career in the medical profession, Denney sometimes finds her biggest challenges can be on dry land.

“It can be hard to have a social life and balance out school work and friends with swimming,” she said. “Every day is a little bit of a struggle.”

Valz acknowledges her ability to meet those challenges.

“She works exceptionally hard,” he said. “She’s competitive, yet caring about her teammates. She’s got incredible natural ability, but you can see the reason she’s so fast is she’s worked hard at it. She’s also exceptionally coachable. She listens.”

This story was originally published September 17, 2018 at 1:40 PM with the headline "Forget size. Measure the heart, and the times, for Black Hills swimmer Rylee Denney."