2/13/25 Highlight: Boys’ Swimming and Diving
By LYDIA KUHNERT and JAYDEN OH
On Feb. 5, the boys’ varsity and JV swimming and diving teams competed in a thrilling meet at St. John’s Prep. This meet marked the varsity team’s ninth undefeated win of the season. As St. John’s is an all-boys school, both varsity and junior varsity swimmers were mixed throughout the events and had to swim together on multiple occasions to balance the total number of swimmers competing.
Lower Allen Klingel reflected on how this mix of swimmers fostered team spirit, saying, “It was a really good opportunity to build community between the varsity and the junior varsity teams because we hadn’t had a meet before where we were together. In this meet, we were all able to cheer each other on and that really helped.”
“While we had to swim more events because they had way more swimmers, it was fun. Swimming with the JV team was a great team bonding experience,” commented prep Owen Lee.
Big Red outswam St. John’s in almost all the events. Klingel pointed out, “There weren’t close races, but at the end of the 4x100 relay, Winnie beat their last leg and won it for us. That was a big moment.”
At the meet, multiple people qualified for the Eastern Interscholastic Swim and Dive Championship, a highly renowned competition for elite swimmers. Lee commented on the success of his teammates, saying, “We won by a landslide and we also had some new people, such as Mateo Sandhu, who qualified for Easterns.”
Prep Ben Lewis, a member of the JV team, added, “We did well. I was not feeling good, but I saw many people’s personal bests. I think we could’ve done better with more practice.”
Kingel concluded, “JV did really well. Sadly they didn’t win, but I think it was good for them to be in the same environment as us and watch how we do things. And then also it was hopeful for us to have them cheering us on.”
This week, Big Red competes at Easterns on Feb. 14 and Feb. 15. Make sure to come out and support swimming and diving on their impressive journey to the championships!