Boys’ Swimming See Improvement over Last Year

photo by Jack Armstrong '15

photo by Jack Armstrong ’15

By Steven Witkin ’16

With one more division meet before the championship meets, the Warrior swim and dive team is 3-1 for the girls and 2-2 for the boys. Both teams pulled out a win on Saturday over Northwest, a team with some very fast swimmers, with the girls winning 105-66 and the boys 94-77. Although the boys’ contest was close, it put the team over its tendency in the past few years to only win one meet each year. Added on to the girls winning 111-60 but the boys losing 90-81 to Quince Orchard before winter break, the team is set to finish the season with a better record than last year.

The benefit of a mostly full lineup put the Warriors in a position to win the majority of points in most events against Northwest. Sophomore diver Cody Carlson returned from a back injury to lead the divers in sweeping both the boys and girls one-meter diving over Northwest. Cody himself nearly doubled the points of the highest scoring Northwest diver, 170.95 to 87.25. As freshman swimmer Declan Black put it, the dive team’s success came as no surprise because “our divers are really good and always do well.”

Another highlight of the meet was the last event, the girls 400 Yard Freestyle Relay. With a team of fast freestylers consisting of senior Christina Kolanowski, freshman Kelly Kolanowski, and juniors Margarita Ryan and Morgan Hill, the Warriors top relay was far ahead of all other relay teams but one, Northwest’s top relay. At the start of the last leg of the relay, there was a several body length gap between the two relay teams. With 50 yards left to go, Morgan Hill had already made up half of the distance. Sprinting, she pulled even with the Northwest swimmer on the last lap to win the relay by a margin of seven-tenths of a second.

There is sure to be more excellent swimming and diving at the last division meet of the season against Poolesville on Saturday, January 24.