Topeka ? Because of the very nature of their sport — swim caps, goggles, team scores, virtual anonymity — it’s easy to dismiss Free State High swimmers Chloe Portela, Morgan Flannigan, Molly Albrecht and Reilly Moore with little more than a passing glance.

When they walk past you, with their sheepish grins and shy glances, they don’t look like dominant athletes.

Truth is, they might be the most talented athletes to walk the halls of their Class 6A school.

Saturday, they proved they at least belong in the conversation by helping the Firebirds bring home the 2009 state title.

The state championship is the third athletic state title in school history and the first for a girls program.

Although most fans measure athletes by how high they can jump, how fast they can run or how strong they are, swimmers are generally measured only against time.

Aside from different arm movements and kicking motions within the different strokes, the races look the same. But this Free State quartet has a knack for making them all look like pure magic. At least some of the credit for that goes to FSHS coach Annette McDonald.

“There are so many different factors that go into swimming,” Albrecht said. “But I think a major one is that coach McDonald did a great job of preparing us for this meet.”

Another important factor to winning a team title is the ability to see the big picture beyond any individual focus. This team has that.

Saturday, when Flannigan hopped out of the pool after taking third in an exhausting 200 freestyle, she did not attempt to catch her breath, nor did she stare up at the scoreboard. Instead, she found time, between gasps of air, to scream for junior Adriane Black, who was on the starting block for the next race.

This year’s state meet was littered with instances like that, and it’s one of many things that make this group special. Its superstars are team players and they support each other as well as the rest of the team unconditionally.

Another factor that makes this group unique is its camaraderie. In the cutthroat, me-first world of swimming, each of the four has enjoyed her share of remarkable success.

Portela has spent time in Puerto Rico, swimming with the national team in her father’s native country. She’ll return to Puerto Rico on Monday, in fact, where she’ll compete in various events for a week-and-a-half before coming home for the summer.

Flannigan, like the rest of this fab four, has a handful of junior national qualifying times under her belt. They don’t just hand those out.

Albrecht, in addition to earning All-American honors during her high school career, will take her skills to Yale University in the fall.

And Moore, thanks to a stellar weekend, now has her name attached to three school records and another state record.

It would be easy for any of the four to envy the others or fall victim to the animosity and nasty competitiveness that swimming can breed. But they don’t.

“We all have tremendous motivation, we all root for each other as much as ourselves and we all want to win every event we can for the team,” Moore said. “We came into this weekend as a team, not as a group of individuals. And that’s why we are where we are.”