Sports

Wynter ’14 Freezes Choate in 100 Back; Andover Begins Quest for Championship

Tim Wynter ’14 fell behind a Choate swimmer early in the 100 Backstroke but swam hard to come back in the last 50 yards and win by only a 10th of a second.

“When I found out that Choate had a postgraduate [who’s] fast at backstroke; it made me more excited to swim,” Wynter said. “The race was very close. He was slightly ahead of me at the 50, but I knew that I am a strong sprinter. After the final turn I increased my arm rotation, and I am glad that I touched first.”

This victory was part of a decisive win for Andover Boys Swimming as it defeated Choate 115-70 in its first meet of the year.

“I thought we started off very strong and everyone got a chance to show what progress they have achieved from training over break and during our first week back,” said Connor Fraser ’13.

Fraser contributed a fourth place finish in the 100 Backstroke with a personal best time of 59.97.

In the meet’s first event, Andover won the 200 Medley Relay by securing the first two places with two impressive times of 1:38.64 and 1:40.44.

A Choate swimmer secured the first place time in the 50 Freestyle but Andover continued to display its tremendous depth with second, third and fourth place finishes from Michael Camarda ’14 (22.81), Captain Derrick Choi ’12 (23.08) and Eric Benca ’12 (23.66), respectively.

Andover’s Sam Berner ’12 placed fourth in diving, and Andover led Choate by just one point as the meet returned to swimming.

Andover began to garner control of the meet when Wynter, David Cho ’14 and Andrew Xuan ’13 placed first, second and fourth in the 100 Butterfly with times of 54.63, 56.72 and 58.68, respectively.

In the 500 Freestyle, Jun Oh ’12 earned his second victory of the meet with a time of 4:40.57. After the 500 Freestyle and 200 Freestyle Relay, Andover increased its comfortable lead and led Choate 84-55 heading into the final three events.

After the 100 Backstroke came arguably the second best race of the day as Didi Peng ’12 (1:01.22) out-dueled teammate Andrew Wilson ’12 (1:01.88) to win a close 100 Breaststroke.

Andover concluded the meet by handily winning the top two spots in the 400 Freestyle Relay with times of 3:20.42 and 3:22.03.

Fraser said, “We have been training hard as a team, and that training definitely played a large part in swimming well against Choate. We have been focusing especially on explosiveness and technique in our training.”

“With several best times and great races today in the midst of starting winter term and heavy training, the Andover Boys’ Varsity Swimming and Diving Team is off to a good start and looks forward to its next competition,” added head coach David Fox.

Andover will square off at Loomis this Saturday at 2:00.