by Malec Fahmy ’20

 As the swim and dive season winds down, there has been many successes. To begin, the girls finished the regular season undefeated, boasting a 5-0 conference record, and a very impressive win over a talented Bethesda-Chevy Chase (B-CC) team.  The boys also did well, going 2-3 in the division, with extremely close meets with Wootton and Blake.

 Moving onto the championship season, the girls walked away with a win at the Division 2 Championships while the boys finished in fourth, just a few points shy of third. After a successful divisional meet, the team went into Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming & Diving Championships (Metros) with confidence.

 After winning last year, the girls came in third, capping off their fifth straight top three finish at Metros. Although they did not win this year, third place is an amazing accomplishment in a meet that includes all of the best competition from private and public schools in the Metropolitan area. Some individual accomplishments included a first-place finish in 500 freestyle by senior Kaitlin Gravell, a third-place finish by senior Sophia Ryan in the 500, and another third place finish in the 50-freestyle by junior Amanda Wenhold.

 The boys finished in seventeenth, having both divers finish first and second. Freshman Max Weinrich set the new Sherwood record with 588.85 points, while not too far behind sophomore Michael Parker came in second with 499.10 points. Although the boys had good swims in the preliminary session, senior Jamison Crow’s 100 butterfly, 50 freestyle, and the boys 400 freestyle relay were the only events that finaled. Crow came in 17 and 26 place, while the relay placed 17.

 After strong performances at Metros, the team went to regionals the following weekend. The regional meet determines who will qualify for States. The top three swimmers in each event from each region qualify for states and then the next 12 fastest times from each event. Sherwood had ten girls and four boys qualify for individual events at states, as  well as the relays for each team. Diving begins on Friday and swimming is on Saturday.

 Last week, coach Brendan Lees announced to the team that this will be his last season coaching swimming and diving after an 18-year coaching career at MCPS.