Celia Gallager ’21
Ella Sundstrom ’21
As illustrated through her 27 broken records, numerous awards, and seven years of participating in the Junior Olympics, Laurielle Kelly Feuzeu Mekoue ‘22 is a talented and dedicated swimmer. Mekoue’s coaches and teammates applaud her hard work and modesty that is evident in every meet and practice.
Mekoue began her swimming career 13 years ago at the age of three on the Garrett Road YMCA team. She explains, “I had practices on Tuesdays, which is how I first got my water time.” Now, other than her participation on the Episcopal swim team in the winter, Mekoue swims year round with the Suburban Seahawks Club. In the summer, she trains with both Suburban and the Lansdowne Swim Club.
While swimming with Episcopal and her club teams, Mekoue has received extensive achievements and accolades for her hard work and swimming prowess. Winning the Moyer Cup Award, Best Excellence Award, and many Inter-Ac awards are testaments to her talent, passion, and dedication in the pool. Furthermore, throughout her swimming career, Mekoue has been awarded Most Outstanding Swimmer five times and Most Valuable Player three times. The All-Delco athlete also helped EA’s swim team win first place at Easterns in 2020, where she won the 50 Yard Freestyle with a time of 23.71 seconds and the 100 Yard Freestyle with a time of 51.59 seconds. This past season, Mekoue qualified for the National Club Swimming Association (NCSA) Junior Nationals for the fourth year in a row.
Despite these achievements, Mekoue is consistently recognized for her modesty. “She is very humble and she works extremely hard at her craft and that inspires a lot of swimmers on the team and coaches that are just in awe of what she is able to do,” John Kelly, Swim Team Assistant Coach, explains. Similarly, Swim Team Captain Bridget Egan ‘21 states, “she’s the fastest swimmer I know and she’s so humble about it.”
An example of her humble attitude is her constant quest to improve, “starting at such a young age really encouraged me to continue the sport. Every year watching myself progress and get better each year has encouraged me to continue swimming.”
Mekoue’s desire to grow as an athlete is widely acknowledged and influential to the team. Egan articulates, “she has really led by example. She does her best and everyone looks up to her in that sense.” Kelly echoes these sentiments, saying that “her work ethic in the pool pushes a lot of her teammates to also push themselves.”
As a teammate, Egan explains that Mekoue “has so much energy and she always has a positive energy towards everything. … She always has the best attitude.. she’s someone that always wants to push you, you can have a friendly competitiveness with her.” Margot LeRoux ‘21 concurs, sharing, “besides being one of the fastest swimmers I’ve seen, she all around has a great attitude and great sense of humor.” On her personal experience swimming with Mekoue, LeRoux says, “I’m in a lot of the same races as her and we have a fun competitive thing going. She’s a great motivator.”
Mekoue’s favorite moment on the team came from the largest swim meet of the season: Easterns 2020. She remembers “being at the blocks for the 100 free and seeing my teammates at the other side of the pool, I was very nervous, but at the same time, calming down because I knew that they were going to be cheering for me as I swam the race.”
Assistant Coach Quincy Hyson shares this same favorite EA swim memory as Mekoue. He explains that coming in first at Easterns is “always a big deal.” Hyson recognizes that Mekoue’s talent is also in “how she carries herself.” He explains, “The grind never gets to her. She is always up for a race no matter how she feels. She goes into it with an edge to where you know she is going to give it her best.”