Ankeny swimming standout Alexis Henning has verbally committed to join the women’s swimming and diving program at South Dakota State.
Henning said she visited only a few schools before making her decision.
“I had a small number of schools I was focused on to study architecture. I was lucky to find the type of school I was looking for that also had a swim program that was a good fit,” said Henning. “I wanted a smaller school in the Midwest with an architecture program so that kept my search small which helped a lot. I focused on choosing the right school fit first and then reached out to the SDSU coaches about swimming after that.”
Henning was a four-time state qualifier in the 100 backstroke. She placed 14th as a freshman, 12th as a sophomore, eighth as a junior and fourth as a senior.
Henning broke her own school record during the preliminaries at the state meet, when she posted a time of 56.81 seconds. She helped Ankeny to a fifth-place finish overall.
Henning placed seventh in the 50 freestyle in 24.69. She also swam on the fourth-place 200 medley relay and anchored the eighth-place 400 freestyle relay.
Henning called SDSU a mid-sized school with the benefits of a larger university.
“It’s big enough to have an architecture program, but smaller class sizes in my major,” she said. “They have great athletic facilities, and I thought I might be a good fit for their swim team. Luckily, the coaches agreed! I was impressed with their coaches and team culture. My club coaches know the head coach (Doug Humphrey) and said great things about him as well.”