North Jersey Female Athlete of the Week blossomed into a star at a young age

Sonia Oliveira saw her 6-year-old daughter floundering in the deep end of the Wayne YMCA pool. Swim coach Vlad Popel saw a potential star. Eleven years later, Sarah Rodrigues remembers that day and laughs.

"Growing up, I always loved being in the water and my mom wanted me to be safe there so she signed me up for swim lessons at the Y," Sarah said.

"I was watching her one day and I thought she was really struggling and that I'd have to jump in the pool to get her out," Oliveira said. "Then this man comes over to me and says 'is that your daughter? I think she should be on the swim team.' I thought he was joking.''

This June, Rodrigues will swim the 200-meter backstroke at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. She's currently ranked No. 25 in the country in that event.

"To this day, we don't know what he saw in me back then," said Rodrigues, who continues to train with Popel, now at the Jersey Aquatic Club in New Providence.

Maybe it was the way Rodrigues shot through the levels of her lessons in a couple of months when it took others a couple of years.

Maybe it was the determination that drove her to play multiple sports as a kid, including basketball, soccer, softball, tennis, even ballet.

Basketball was the last to go, in deference to mom, a former member of the Portuguese woman's national team.

"That was hard because my mom really wanted me to play," the 5-foot-10½ Wayne Valley junior said. "But with all my swim practices and meets, when I was 12, I never was able to make a single basketball game."

There are no relays in her club swimming, so Rodrigues, who finished second in the State Meet of Champions in the 100 backstroke and third in the 200 freestyle last spring, relishes her chance to be part of the high school relays. At the Passaic County meet, her sizzling anchor leg in the 200 freestyle gave the Indians a thrilling come-from-behind win as Rodrigues split faster than last year's winning 50-freestyle time at the 2023 Meet of Champions.

"I really like doing the relays on the high school team," she said. "it's really nice to have that contrast.''

While Rodrigues has already made the cut to swim in Indianapolis, she still has hopes in three other events: the 100 backstoke, 100 butterfly and 200 freestyle. She'll have to wait for the high school season to be over to swim in the long course (meters not yards) races to hit those goals.

"Mentally, it's tough for me to go to a meet and swim only one event," said Rodrigues, who has already committed to swim for the powerhouse program at the University of Texas. "When you focus on just one event and you don't do well in it, you beat yourself up about it. Doing multiple events in multiple disciplines are what makes meets fun."

The family, which includes younger brother Andrew, installed a pool in the backyard during COVID, and while its not a racing pool, Sarah likes to float around on a pool floatie and chill to some country music.

"My race prep music is a lot more high energy," she said.

And maybe that energy is the answer to the question of what her club coach saw so many years ago.

Sarah Rodrigues

Sport: Swimming

School: Wayne Valley

Class: Junior. Age: 17

Accomplishment: Rodriguez won the 100 and 200 freestyle races at the Passaic County, setting meet records in both events and completing a sweep of the six school individual records. She also anchored the winning 200 meter freestyle relay to victory. Earlier in the week, Sarah won the 500 freestyle and 200 IM against Wayne Hills

Also nominated: Jocelyn Danbe of River Dell, Solaris Paul of Kennedy, and Leeana Mercado of Lodi for wrestling; and Kate Walsh of Westwood and Cayla Menicola of Ramapo for basketball; and Lauren Yu of Bergen Tech for fencing.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Bergen Record Female Athlete of the Week: Sarah Rodrigues, Wayne Valley