Boys' Swimming Wins Easterns; Girls' Team Finishes Fifth
2/28/2010
Mercersburg's boys' swim team captured first place in the 2010 Eastern Intercollegiate Swimming Championships, the biggest prep school aquatic event in the nation and one of the most competitive high school swimming and diving meets in the country. The team title is the Storm's first Easterns championship since 2002, and the fifth in head coach Pete Williams' tenure at the school.
Fifty-two teams competed in the 110th annual Easterns, which have been hosted by parents of Germantown Academy swimmers since 1986. The swimmers and divers converged on LaSalle University’s Kirk Natatorium, a six-lane, 25-yard pool. More national and prep school swimming records are usually set at Easterns than at any other meet in the nation.
Both the boys’ and girls’ teams left Mercersburg earlier than originally scheduled on Thursday, February 25, to run ahead of a winter storm heading east to Philadelphia. The swimmers and coaches got bumped from their hotel and wound up changing hotels twice before they settled in, got some sleep, and woke up to the grueling Friday-Saturday schedule of the Easterns, the biggest prep school aquatic event in the nation and one of the most competitive high school swimming and diving meets in the country.
When Event #24, the men’s 400 yard freestyle relay, finished on Saturday evening, the girls’ team had swum to an impressive fifth place finish in the Easterns and the Blue Storm boys’ team exulted in its first place finish, last won by a Mercersburg team in 2002. “The team spirit was incredible,” Williams noted. “Both the boys and the girls supported each other throughout the weekend and they all raced really hard. Just about every swimmer posted a lifetime best. With swimming, it all comes down to one meet, and this was it.”
The swimmers first officially set their sights on Easterns at Coach Williams’ Texas Ranger Day on Wednesday, January 27. They go through a month of carefully tailored training that includes a long “tapering off” period just before Easterns. This year, the methodical training regimen returned big dividends as the boys’ team finished with 464 points, while Loyola Blakefield, which won the National Catholic Swimming Championships this year, took second with 434.5 points. MAPL rival Peddie School came in third with 393.5 points and host Germantown Academy earned 265 points for fourth place. The Blue Storm boys’ team had lost to both Peddie and Loyola in dual meets earlier this season.
Tareq Kaaki ’11 became an automatic All-American in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle by winning both events, and joined his two brothers, Basil ’06 and Abed ’04, as high school All-Americans. Nick Thomson ’10 made All-American last year in the 50-yard freestyle, and will likely do so again this year. Kevin Carroll ’11 earned All-America consideration status in the 100-yard backstroke, and Collin Greene ’11 achieved All-America consideration status in the 500-yard freestyle.
Mercersburg’s 200-yard freestyle relay ‘B’ team of Ty Malone ’10, Linc Kupke ’11, Kevin Shivers ’13, and Sammy Schadt ’10 earned automatic All-America status, and the 400-yard freestyle 'B' relay team of Malone, Carroll, Schadt, and Shivers got All-America consideration status. (The ‘A’ teams in both relays contained postgraduates, who are not eligible for All-American consideration.) The top 18 preliminary finishers for each event qualified to compete in the championship rounds. All times posted below are the fastest times (whether preliminary or finals) posted by a team or swimmer.
On Friday, the boys’ ‘A’ team of Kevin Carroll, Chris Hoke ’10, Geramiah Simoes ’10, and Nikolai Paloni ’10 took second place in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:34.79. Kaaki won the 50-yard freestyle in 20.99 seconds, while Hoke (21.17) and Nick Thomson (21.21) took the fourth and fifth spots, and Paloni finished eighth (21.56).
The Blue Storm ‘A’ team of Thomson, Paloni, Kaaki, and Hoke won the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:23.58. The Easterns meet and national prep record for that event (1:22.70) was set in 1992 by the Mercersburg team of Brian Craft ’92, Zach Gipson ’92, Geri Mewett ’92 and Greg Gipson ’93. In 1987, Melvin Stewart ’88 set the Easterns meet record of 48.09 in the 100-yard butterfly. This year, Simoes finished fourth in that event with a time of 51.32, while Kupke and Schadt placed 10th and 12th, respectively.
Greene finished ninth in the 200-yard freestyle (1:45.90), while Schadt took 10th (1:44.80), Ed Carroll ’11 finshed 11th (1:46.18), and Kevin Carroll followed in 12th (1:45.98). In the men’s one-meter diving, Jake Campbell ’10, who just started diving three months ago, finished 13th. Harrison Helm ’12 took 15th in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:01.66.
On Saturday, Kaaki again led the Storm, capturing the top spot in the 100-yard freestyle with a 45.84 finish. Thomson finished seventh in the event (47.74), Kupke took eighth (47.73), and Paloni finished 13th (47.95). In the 500-yard freestyle finals, Greene took 6th with a time of 4:38.53 and Eric Brown ’12 placed 16th in 5:01.28, thus earning his Mercersburg varsity letter.
Kevin Carroll (52.36) and Simoes (52.74) placed 5th and 6th in the 100 yard backstroke, with Thomaz Mourao ’11 finishing ninth (53.82) and Ed Carroll placing 14th (55.04). Tom Zhang ’12 swam to a fourth-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 59.84, while Hoke finished in sixth place (1:00.01). In the final event of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay, Mercersburg’s ‘A’ team of Thomson, Simoes, Kupke, and Kaaki placed fifth in 3:08.90.
“Of course the credit goes to our kids, who performed at their absolute best,” Williams concluded. “But we are very grateful to our parents, who did so much to help the team, including helping find the right hotel and bringing food and drink to our swimmers at the meet, and our athletic department, which had to do some deft juggling to pull this off.”
For girls' team results, click here. For complete meet results, click on Germantown Academy's EASTERNS link.