The Park boys’ swim team faced Orono Jan. 25 at Orono High School. The team lost the meet 71-88, though 13 additional points were scored by Orono’s diving team.
Junior Charlie Rostal said it was a solid meet for him, as he did well in his events and made a personal best time.
“It was a pretty good meet, I swam pretty good. I swam the 200 free and did very good in that. It felt good, and I got the best time of 51.54,” Rostal said. “Then I had the 100 free which was alright, I didn’t do exactly how I wanted, but I’ll get ‘em next time. I also had the 200 free relay and the 400 free relay which were both pretty good.”
Head coach Amanda Forsberg said the conditions were tough coming into the meet but the swimmers still performed well.
“I don’t want to single anyone out (having a stand out meet) because I think everyone had a phenomenal meet, and it’s also tough coming off of finals,” Forsberg said. “I know everyones tired, we’ve had a lot of tough practices, and I think everyone swam really well tonight.”
Rostal said a big disadvantage was that Orono’s team is so much bigger than Parks, and the boys’ expected a tough meet.
“We knew coming in that they had a lot more swimmers than us and they got a couple guys that we all know that are pretty good and I don’t think it was far from expected,” Rostal said. “It was a good meet and we fought hard.”
Senior captain Daniel Cameron said something different from the majority of their meets was that they were missing their assistant coach, Joe Yaeger. Fortunately strength coach Jessica Gust stepped up as a temporary replacement.
“We unfortunately didn’t have coach Joe with us today,” Cameron said. “But we have Ms. Gust with us, she was here and she was really helpful, she did a great job. She hasn’t really coached anyone in like 15 years.”
Rostal said he is excited for the rest of the season and to go as far as he can this year.
“For the rest of the season I’m really just looking forward to it,” Rostal said. “I just need to drop some more time and go to varsity sections, get some best times and hopefully go to state.”
The boys’ next swim meet is at 4:15 p.m. Feb. 1 at Benilde St. Margaret.
