Blue Valley Southwest defeats boys swim and dive in first meet

Although the team lost their first home meet, head coach Kyle Farrington said the team has a lot to look forward to this season.

Delaney LaFon, Editor-in-chief

Diving into the season, the boys swim and dive team was defeated by BVSW in their first dual meet of the year, with a final score of 79-87.  With two weeks of preparation before the meet, coach Kyle Farrington said the team was confident to be in the pool and competed well as individuals and as a team.

“The team did a lot better than we thought they would and we are starting in a pretty good place, but we just have a lot of things that we need to focus on and fine-tune,” Farrington said. “We don’t have a lot of guys who have strong swimming backgrounds, so they will just have to work a lot harder to compete with the other teams, and [the boys] know that.”

Many successful races of the night included sophomore Colton Becker’s state-consideration time of 23.63 sec. on the 50 yd. Freestyle and the 200 yd. Freestyle relay team, seniors Logan Ashe, Jeremy Grenell, Marcus Winslow and Becker, who considered with their race time of 3:45.84 min. The 200 yd. medley relay team, including Ashe, Winslow, junior Austin Edmondson and sophomore Jackson Wells, placed second, swimming the race in 1:52.41 min. and also earned a state consideration time. The boys medley relay team placed eighth at state competition last year and has high hopes for this season, Ashe said.

“Our younger guys look really good so far,”  Ashe said. “Overall as a team I feel like we are ready to start doing well in our meets. Over break we put in a lot of practice, and I think for the most part it paid off today.”

Although the team did not win the meet, the boys said they were very satisfied with the way they swam and were surprised at how much progress they have made already compared to their first meet of last season. Along with achievement of considering for state competition in multiple events, the first meet served as a promising foundation for the team to improve upon through the season.

“Everyone always gets those pre-race butterflies, but once your adrenaline gets pumping and after you finish your very first race it takes a lot of pressure off for the rest of the meet. The first meet gives us an expectation of what our meets should look like so you aren’t as nervous and give us a goal to work for.”

The boys will swim in their next meet away against Olathe Northwest at 5 p.m.