Swimming in only four schoolgirl meets this season, Erin Tateishi is leaving her mark.

The Caribou freshman owns five state Class A top-10 times this season, including a No. 2 spot in the 100-yard backstroke.

In the water since she was a 5-year-old, Tateishi and her family moved to Stockholm two years ago from Denver following her father Richard’s retirement after 23 years in the Army.

After years of swimming, she was surprised to learn Caribou didn’t have a high school swim team.

“I was disappointed because I thought it was going to ruin all my training,” she said, adding she eventually wants a Division I swimming scholarship. “I thought I was never going to be able to swim on a team.”

She’s part of the four-member Aroostook Swim Club, which gives County swimmers an opportunity to swim at the high school level.

The swim club was incorporated this fall, but is in its fourth year of existence, according to president Frank Pytlak.

“[It] started out as a booster group 4-5 years ago because there were some Presque Isle girls who wanted to swim high school competition,” Pytlak said. “They kind of went through our rec center, and so finally, years later, these are the kids who are in high school.”

The team, which includesPresque Isle senior Monique Cote and Fort Fairfield freshmen Melissa Butler and Nick Lynch, has picked up meets against Bangor, Ellsworth, Orono, and Old Town.

“It’s meant a lot to me [to swim against high school competition],” Cote, the team’s sole four-year member, said. “I’ve learned a whole lot because I’ve done this on my own.”

Tateishi has latched on with an Edmunston, New Brunswick, swim team which is the Canadian equivalent of a United States Swimming club, and is preparing for the Canadian Junior Nationals in two weeks.

She will not swim in Maine again until the girls Class A state championship meet on Saturday, Feb. 15. Cote has also qualified for the meet in the 200 freestyle.