Boys’ Swimming Ends Season With a Splash

Before Spring break, Exeter’s varsity swim squad competed in the New England Interscholastic Swimming Championships. After an extremely successful season, the team was “excited about kicking butt, breaking records and just having a great time,” according to lower Andrew Sun. Nine of the eleven possible school records were set by members of this 2019 team.

Two weeks before New England Championships, the team swam around 6,000 yards each day for almost a week. However, as the meet drew closer, the team’s total yardage dropped to allow for the swimmers to rest. The dropping of yardage is a process known as a “taper” to swimmers. Tapering for a championship meet allows the team to swim faster than regular swim meets. The team also cut all sugars, fried foods, and carbs from their diets in the week leading up to the meet.

“We had a few sprint sets where we could race each other throughout our last training week, and that hyped us up for the competition,” lower Adam Tuchler recalled. While their teammates were racing in practice, the team would smack the boards against the gutter of the pool to make a large echoing noise to accompanyZ their screaming and cheering. “We hyped each other up by setting goal times for each other and cheering for every single teammate at the end of the pool,” lower Aren Mizuno added.

There were many outstanding swimmers at interschols. Uppers Andrew Benson and Charlie Venci both claimed first place in the 100 meter Breaststroke and 100 meter Backstroke, respectively. Benson also won the 100 meter Freestyle, setting New England records in both the Freestyle and the Breaststroke.

Tuchler said that Venci “did a great job by out touching his opponent by one 100th of a second to take first place in the 100 backstroke.” Another swimmer highlighted by his teammates was Mizuno. “Aren worked super hard every day in practice. At meets, [he] showed incredible sportsmanship and was a great teammate,” prep Georgie Venci said. Senior and Co-Captain Jared Zhang also stood out and was seen by his teammates as one of the fastest swimmers at the meet.

“This season went incredibly well. For the most part we improved our swimming, performed well at championship meets, and had fun!” G. Venci added. Upper Andrew Sun agreed, stating that “the amount of support we have on the team is awesome. There was a lot of cheering throughout the races.” Although it was sad to see the seniors swim in their last meet in an Exeter cap, there are not many of them graduating, “which shows the potential we have for next year,” Mizuno explained, “[The season] was awesome. We were able to go to Easterns for the first time and had a very good season finishing 7-1.”