Two girl swimmers break Blair records

FEB 4., MONTGOMERY COLLEGE (TAKOMA PARK) -

Two Blazers broke Blair swim records today in the last duel meet of the season. Senior captain Kelsey Dean and freshman Melanie Snail broke a combined three records swimming against the Whitman Vikings, a Division I team. The boys' swim team won 108 - 76 and the girl's suffered a 85 - 97 loss, but the results do not factor into Blair's record this season because the meet was non-divisional. As a result, the boys' team finished the season undefeated with a 6-0 record, and the girl's finished with a 1 -5 record.

Dean, who has constantly been breaking her own records this season, set a new Blair record in the 500 Free with a time of 5:32.53, beating out the nearest swimmer in the race by an outstanding 16 seconds. Dean also broke her own 200 IM record by .17 seconds - a record she set just last week - with a time of 2:24.69, earning her another first place victory.

Snail, who has been pushing the record in the 100 Back throughout the season, finally broke it with a time of 1:07.24. Snail was over two seconds faster than her competitors. Dean and Snail were the only girls' swimmers to place first in this meet, but Blair held its own throughout the meet, never falling more than 20 points behind the Vikings. The girls' team took many second and third places, which helped keep them within reach of the Vikings.

The Blair boys swam a strong meet, complete with three sweeps, in the 200 Free, the 500 Free and the 100 Back. In the 200, junior captain Robert Feasley and juniors David Vuong and David Goode took first, second and third respectively, and in the 500 Free sophomore Yang Yang, Goode and sophomore Andrew Kannan claimed the first three spots. In the 100 Back, sophomore Sam Bullard-Sisken took first, followed by Yang and sophomore Tim Peng.

Senior captain Bryan Erickson took another first place victory for Blair in the 200 IM, and Feasley took a first in the 100 Butterfly. Senior captain Tyler Wilchek also finished first in the 100 Free. The boys were in the lead for all but the first event of the meet, and the victory only added to their undefeated streak: 8-0 this season, including two non-divisional meets.

Since this was the last meet of the season, during halftime the Blazers held a ceremony for their seniors. Giving out black and red balloons, and chocolate, Blair honored their seniors: Alex Alm, Debbie Cheng, Daniel Chamberlain, captain Anna Chiplis, Dean, Erickson, Diana Frey, Minh Huynh-Le, diver Sam Rosenthal, diving captain Sam Silsbee and Wilchek. According to Coach David Swaney, "[The team is] going to miss all the seniors that are graduating. We have 11 seniors - that's a lot for Blair."

This was the first meet of the season that had a 200 Free Relay. According to Wilchek, the last meet of every season includes this third relay in order to prepare teams for the post-season events, which include the additional relay. Wilchek said that because the meet did not count for Whitman's records, they mixed up their swimming lineup a bit. "They chose to let more people swim. Some of their people swam off events, " he said, adding, "All their fast swimmers swam in their three relays." As a result, Blair did not take first in any relay, which is unusual.

Dean felt that this meet ended the season on a good note. "I think it was a good final dual meet," she said. "The girls did pretty well."

Blair has no more dual meets this season, but they will be competing in the Montgomery County Division II Championships at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11 at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center.