Boys swimming swam their first meet of the season Dec. 7 at Hopkins High School. Park battled hard and ultimately came out with a victory of 83-76, setting them up for a successful season.
Head coach Amanda Forsberg said she was pleased with the outcome of the meet, and excited about new swimmers’ contributions.
“I think it went really well,” Forsberg said. “This is the first meet we’ve had this season, with five new people on the team, and it’s always fun to have new people on the screen as well.”
According to senior Henry Salita, the team is very skilled, but lacks numbers, which can be a struggle.
“Our top swimmers are very good and we are a very strong team, we just lack a bit in the numbers, so we don’t have as much depth,” said Salita. “But we make up for it by everyone on the team stepping up and doing their part.”
Forsberg said the team focused on getting back into good shape for this meet, especially coming off of the fall season.
“We slowly ramped up the yardage because most of them are coming off the fall season where they’re tapered, so just trying to get them back into shape,” Forsberg said.
Junior Henry Berg said Adam Kamel, a new swimmer, has really stood out to him and has been doing extremely well.
“I’d like to shout out Adam Kamel. He’s new to the school and this was his first high school meet in this country and he did really well,” said Berg. “He’s been working hard and he did really awesome today and won his events.”
Salita said the meet went extremely well, especially considering how early in the season it is, and it was nice to come out with a victory.
“I thought we did a phenomenal job, especially for our first meet,” Salita said. “I think everyones doing well, both new and returning swimmers, and we won.”
Berg said the team’s practices from the previous week played a big role in their victory.
“To prepare for the meet we did a week and a half of hard training, and since it’s a new team we got some younger kids just getting to know each other and continuing to work hard,” Berg said. “The hard training definitely pushed us and helped us win tonight.”
Salita said Berg did a fantastic job in his events, and he didn’t think there was much he could have done differently.
“Someone I’d shout out from this meet is Henry Berg. He has some pretty awesome swims and some hard races,” said Salita. “I don’t think he could have done much better with his performance or that he even needed to.”
