After Park boys’ swimming placed second at Sections Feb. 22, coach Amanda Forsberg said the team’s success was greater than she had anticipated.

“They far exceeded my expectations. So it’s been a great season, they put in the hard work and it paid off today,” Forsberg said.

Park will have two relay teams and junior Hayden Zheng representing the team at State. According to senior and captain Zachary Weiser, this is one of the boys’ most successful seasons, and the team has potential to do even better next season.

“We got second place for one of the first times ever in this Section, so that was super exciting,” Weiser said. “It’s just exciting to see how we can continue to improve for next season.”

According to Forsberg, because the boys’ don’t have a diving team, it makes the success the team had even more remarkable.

“It’s always going to be an uphill battle for the second spot against all the (other) teams’ diving points,” Forsberg said. “So I was excited to see that happen. We haven’t gotten second at Sections since I can’t even remember.”

Weiser said a huge factor in the success the team had was almost everyone on the team was able to improve their times.

“A lot of people were trying to get some better times and almost everyone was able to continue to improve, or at least be happy with the way they were swimming,” Weiser said. “Everyone competed super well and it really showed in the results.”

According to freshman Denly Lindeman, day two of Sections was more fun for the team because of the increase in competitiveness.

“It’s always fun because day one, no one’s really trying. You’re just trying to get to the top eight or top 16,” Lindeman said. “But once you’re at day two you’re giving it everything you got.”

As this season comes to a close, Forsberg said while the team will lose some seniors, the underclassmen on the team are ready to take their place.

“We’re losing four incredible seniors but we had a lot of underclassmen step up,” Forsberg said. “We also had two junior high kids who were the only two junior high kids in the meet, both made day two of Sections so I’m very excited for next year.”

Preliminaries for State will take place 6 p.m. Feb. 28 and finals for State will be 6 p.m. Feb. 29 at Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center at the University of Minnesota.