Varsity Swimming Pennington Meet
By: Henry Liu, Jonathan Jeun
This Saturday, Big Red’s varsity swim team faced off against the Pennington School for the chance to compete in a duel meet despite pandemic conditions. The boy’s team Senior Captains Aidan O’Brien and Aren Mizuno led the team in their last dual meet of the season against The Pennington School in New Jersey in a virtual competition. Although the teams might not have been able to compete in person, they were still able to compare times with each other to spark some much wanted competition.
Big Red performed admirably considering only having a couple weeks of preparation before facing The Pennington School. Senior Adam Tuchler, who won a few events, commented on the team’s performance, “I think that we could have done much better, but given the limited pool time we were given, and the very long process of getting back into shape, we did really well.”
Senior Cooper Walshe agreed. “Everyone was working extremely hard leading up to the meet and we all knew it would be a fight to beat Pennington. I think everyone performed to the best of their ability and everyone played their part in the win. We had the depth needed to outscore them.” Walshe was optimistic about the team’s growth and their performance last Saturday.
Looking back at the results, Prep Michael Yang was especially impressed by the times Tuchler put up. “Given the different times, I think he performed very well, winning both events on our side and scoring a lot of points for the team. I was virtual for the term, but I was cheering them on the whole time.”
Lower Dax Knoll also gave a shout out to Tuchler. “He kept the morale high and was always encouraging when we felt down. Despite him not being captain, he always acted like he was in charge, which made everyone laugh, especially the captains.”
On the girl’s side, Upper Lindsay Machado mentioned, “I had a great time getting back into racing, but it was sad knowing it was our seniors’ last meet. I am happy they were able to represent Exeter one last time.”
Lower Nathalie Kpodonu was also sentimental about the departure of the seniors. “They were always there for us in this short season and I wish them the best of luck wherever they go. Concerning the meet, I think that we, once again, did the best we could with the limited practices that not everyone made.”
One of the top performers was Prep Vedika Amin. “I really enjoyed the high school swimming experience, despite it being scuffed. It was extremely eye opening to be on such a supportive team with so many handworking swimmers. I will always remember all the seniors helped me with in this unprecedented season that we had this winter.” Overall, Big Red made the most of this season, despite the extremely long virtual period and the short and inconsistent practice and preparation schedule.