Boys and Girls Varsity Swimming & Diving (2023-2024)

By ANGELA HE and GRACE YANG ‘27

The 2023-24 Big Red boys’ and girls’ varsity swimming & diving season witnessed multiple exciting wins. Starting from their very first meet, on Saturday Jan. 6, both teams swam against Brunswick and Greenwich Academy, respectively. Both of Big Red’s teams dominated the meet, with the boys scoring 104-79 and the girls scoring 120-66. Lower Nick Limoli took first in diving, totaling a whopping 207.53 points to secure his spot. He implemented a new dive into his routine, a forward double somersault pike, with a difficulty degree of 2.3. 

Continuing their streak, the Big Red swim team competed in the Division 1 NEPSAC meet over the weekend of March 2-3. The girls’ team was crowned the Division 1 champion, and the boys’ team secured second place in New England. Lower Mena Boardman set a New England record with a time of 51.62 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly, and upper Ethan Guo set a pool record of 49.07 seconds in the 100-yard backstroke. 

On their path for more victories, the boys’ swimming and diving team placed fifth in the Eastern Interscholastic Swim Championships, and the girls placed an impressive third. “Expectations going into the meet were pretty high all around, especially coming off good performances at E/A and Easterns Championships. As a team, our goal was to place second overall in points and to try and challenge Andover for the team title,” upper Rudd Day said, who hoped that the team would continue the momentum they had built up throughout the season. 

Blitzshaw highlighted a surprise that closed out the meet. “Not only did [Principal Rawson] come to Andover to watch the events on Sunday afternoon, he jumped into the pool with the girls’ team as a part of the celebrations! I’m not sure any other schools can say that their head of school would do such a thing!”

 Furthermore, the Big Red boys continued to triumph against Choate Rosemary Hall with 111 points against their mere 61. At the same time, the Girls with 119 against 64. Moving towards Austin Prep School, the boys achieved a close win with 86 points against 55, while Girls won with a larger gap of 90 points to 54.

After an exciting season for the Exeter swimming and diving teams, both the boys’ and girls’ team had broken various records and set new standards for future Exonians to aspire towards.