Boys’ swimming season begins with three successful meets

Swimmers work to break team, meet records

Dani Orloff and Atticus Raasch

According to boys’ swimming varsity head coach Amanda Forsberg, the team has competed in two meets so far.

“(The season has been) going really well. We are in the middle of our third week,” Forsberg said. “There was only one day in between (the relay and the invitational). I had them swimming different things. I used those two meets to see forward events for some of those guys.”

Senior captain Nils Rykken said the team saw success in its recent meets.

“So far we’ve had a relay meet, an invite, and we just had our first dual meet against Hopkins,” Rykken said. “So far, all of the meets have gone well.”Forsberg said the difference between a dual meet and an invitational is the number of teams competin

“A dual meet is just when you go head-to-head. An invite is anywhere between eight (teams) and up, so there were 14 teams on Saturday,” Forsberg said.

According to Forsberg, the team broke multiple records this past weekend.

“We had conference relays, so I got some good times,” Forsberg said. “Then we had an invite on Saturday, which is relatively early in the season, but we broke three meet records and we are already close to three team records, which is very exciting.”

Sophomore Luke Anderson said the team performed well despite small numbers.

“We have a smaller team and we do a good job of keeping up with the other teams,” Anderson said. “Really just doing our best to go as fast as we can.”

Forsberg said the team’s performance at the invitational exceeded her expectations.“(At the invitational), we finished third behind St. Thomas Academy, which usually wins single A state, and then I want to say it was Rochester Mayo, which is usually top five, so there was very good competition,” Forsberg said. “It was good to see them compete with them a little bit.”

Rykken said he is pleased with the team’s early success.

“In general, its pretty hard to swim fast at the beginning of the season because most people are getting in shape,” Rykken said. “Everyone on the team has been swimming really fast already which is new and exciting.”

Forsberg said preparing the new swimmers on the team remains the biggest challenge of the season so far.

“I think we have a lot of new guys, so just getting them ready, understanding the system, understanding what it is to be on a swim team (is a challenge),” Forsberg said. “There is a lot of new things, like teaching strokes and just getting them all together.

Anderson said new members of the team looked exceptional in their first meets.

“They have all dropped time at two or three meets and some them are already under 30 which is a goal for most of them in the 50 free,”’ Anderson said. “They can really compete with the other JV team.”