by Katherine Mahoney ‘20 and Malec Fahmy ‘20

After an undefeated, the Sherwood girls’ swim team brought home the gold this past Saturday at the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming and Diving  (Metros). At Saturday night finals at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center, hundred of family, friends, fans, and teachers crowded the stands to watch the girls bring home the championship.

Sherwood girls won their second Metros championship in the past three years, with a score of 362 beating second place Holton-arms by 58 points and third place Stone Ridge by 69 points. Sherwood’s first place finishers included junior Kaitlin Gravell in the 200 yard individual medley, and sophomore Amanda Wenhold in the 100 yard freestyle, who was also runner up in  the 50 yard freestyle. In the 500 yard freestyle the girls had three top ten finishers, seniors Grace Giddings (third), Gravell (fourth), and senior Kelly Kolanski (seventh).

In the men’s competition, Churchill won, and it was the first time since 2000 that a public school team has won. Georgetown Prep and Gonzaga have won in the previous 17 years. Sherwood boys’ swim team improved dramatically from last year, going from 21st place to 17th place. The boys also finaled in all three relays. The sole individual event finaler was Andrew Martinez who finished in twelfth place with a final time of four minutes and 45.95 seconds.

Both the girls and boys will look to defend their title at the 4A/3A Regional meet this Saturday, and the following weekend, the top three swimmers from each region get to compete and the next twelve fastest swimmers in each event move on to the MPSSAA 4A/3A State Championships on February 24, where the girls will look to win their second title in three years.

“It feels unreal to be a metro champ because it’s been something I’ve been striving for since last year. When I first saw the board to see that I had touched first I was in total shock because going into finals I was just thinking about swimming my hardest” said sophomore Amanda Wenhold.