Boys' swimming takes second in county championship

FEB. 20, MARTIN LUTHER KING SWIM CENTER -

The Blair swim team swam an intense meet today against the top swimmers from all 24 MCPS high schools, ultimately resulting in a second place finish for the boys' team and a 15th place finish for the girls - leading to a combined eighth place finish, along with three record times from the girls' team. Walter Johnson ended up with the top combined score for the second year in a row, outscoring its closest competitor by 25 points.

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Photo: Sophomore Sam Bullard-Sisken swims the breaststroke in the Montgomery County Championship swim meet on Feb. 18.

Sophomore Sam Bullard-Sisken swims the breaststroke in the Montgomery County Championship swim meet on Feb. 18. Photo courtesy of Diana Frey.

The boys' team easily beat fifth-place Wootton, whom they had taken a narrow second place to last week at the divisional swim meet, by a margin of 56 points. However, the Blazer boys team lost to first-place Whitman by 17 points. According to senior captain Tyler Wilchek, "If it wasn't for diving we would have gotten first by 17 points." Whitman took both first and fifth place in diving on Friday, for a combined score of 34 points to Blair's zero points in the same event.

The secret to the boys' high score was consistently placing in point-scoring positions throughout the meet. While the Blair team did not place first in any event, they consistently placed in the top 10. Their top place was second, in the 200 Free Relay, where senior captains Tyler Wilchek and Bryan Erickson and sophomores Eddie Tang and Yang Yang narrowly beat Walter Johnson. Yang and Wilchek took third in the 200 IM and 50 Free, respectively, adding to Blair's third place finish in the 200 Medley Relay, where Wilchek, junior captain Robert Feasley, Tang and sophomore Sam Bullard-Sisken lost by a mere .04 seconds to Magruder.

Blair also had three fourth-place finishes, including in the 400 Free Relay with a team of Yang, Erickson, Feasley and junior David Vuong. Wilchek took fourth in the 100 Free, and Feasley in the 100 Fly.

Although they did not score as high as the boys' team, the girls had a very strong meet as well and broke three Blair records, two of which were set in the last two weeks. Freshman Melanie Snail broke her own backstroke record by .01 seconds, senior captain Kelsey Dean broke her 500 Free record by nearly three seconds with a time of 5:29.55, and the girls' 400 Free Relay team of Snail, Dean, junior captain Sally Chang and senior captain Anna Chiplis set a new Blair record at 4:00.98. Another notable score was the tenth place diving finish of freshman Caitlin Ludington, who, according to coach David Swaney, had just learned two new dives in the previous week.

Swaney pointed out that the gap between the top and bottom teams' scores are increasing, making the competition harder - especially with an unbalanced team like Blair. "Both the boys and girls scored more points this year, and yet our combined score bumped us down two places [from last year]," he said.

Swaney was pleased at the results and people's performances. "Nobody had a really bad swim," he said, adding, "Several people had best times."