Boys’ Swimming Loses To Fast Andover Team
Last Saturday, the Exeter boys’ varsity swim team drove down to Andover for its last dual meet of the season, a showdown against Big Red’s most significant rival school. The boys swam hard, but ultimately came home with a 68-113 score. Looking on the bright side of the outcome, the team will use it as fuel to better its result at the Interscholastic championships, which take place at the Hotchkiss School in two weeks.
“Because of some missed opportunities in races, Andover won by quite a large margin,” senior and co-captain Joel Lotzkar said. “But we are motivated to improve on our swims and end the season on a high note.”
Along with the loss came some notable swims by the lowerclassmen on the team. Lower Jared Zhang placed first in the 500 free, finishing with more than a second to spare before the next person touched the board. In the same event, lower Peter Tuchler finished third with an impressive time of 5:04.99 seconds, securing a much needed three points for the team. Soon afterwards, Prep Charlie “Chaz” Venci swam the 100 back in a time of 54.79, grasping the top spot with ease. This success among the underclassman shows that the team has gained talent this year. These boys will be here for at least two more seasons, and will only be getting better.
“We lost because we know what we have to sacrifice to come out victorious in the end.”
Big Red has been preparing hard for the championships and this meet against Andover has been nothing more than a part of its training. Exeter did not taper for this meet, while Andover did. This gave Andover a big advantage over Exeter, as the boys were not at their maximum strength and speed last weekend.
“That [decision to not taper] was a huge factor determining the outcome of the meet,” upper Joaquin Riojas said. Exeter considered Interschols a higher priority, which suggests that this meet result was an inaccurate reflection of the team’s capability.
“We lost because we know what we have to sacrifice to come out victorious in the end,” Venci admitted.
Echoing Venci’s optimism, prep Andrew Sun said, “This is basically as fast as Andover can go. Whereas we can still go a lot faster.”
Since dual meets require different strategies and depth within the team, the boys will have a good chance at placing in their final meet.
“Apart from individual goals, I know our squad is talented this year and I have high hopes we can finish top three in the team rankings,” Lotzkar said.
After the meet, the captains gave the team a pep talk to sustain the motivation in practice for the last couple of weeks of their season. They will work on improving their technique, endurance, diet and sleep schedule in these crucial fourteen days.
Lotzkar was enthusiastic about the team’s final meets of the season. “We pumped up the guys for two more weeks of hard training. We’re psyched for one more chance to race fast in Interschols at Hotchkiss.”