In its final home meet of the season, Andover Boys Swimming delivered a decisive 104-74 victory over Hopkins with first place finishes in every scored event. After crushing its main rival Deerfield last week, the team showed confidence by switching up its lineup against Hopkins.
“We had room to experiment a little bit and have some of our guys swim events they wouldn’t normally swim, just to find any hidden strengths the team might have in preparation for Easterns,” said Captain Joe Faller ’14.
After Charlie Van Eijk ’14, Aaron Teo ‘15, Alex Li ’15 and David Cao ’14 took first place in the 200 Medley Relay with 1:41.66, Tim Wynter ’14 and Scott Simpson ’14 both took a chance swimming the 200 Freestyle for the first time in their Andover careers.
Wynter swam a negative split, swimming his second half faster than his first, which powered him through to first place with 1:45.67. Simpson followed just behind in 1:50.20, and Connor Fraser ’13 finished third with a season best time of 1:53.15.
“Although my splits were not ideal, I was still pleased with my performance and more importantly the overall outlook of the team as we come closer to our taper cycle,” said Simpson.
Faller and Teo then swam the 200 Individual Medley for the first time, and Faller came out on top, just 0.25 seconds ahead of Teo for first place. Their 2:00.01 and 2:00.26 times took first and second place respectively, and Andrew Yang ’14 followed behind in fourth with 2:06.17.
“It’s always fun to swim a brand new event. Just because you have literally no idea how you’re going to do,” said Faller. “There’s no chance of failure or a bad swim or anything like that since there’s nothing to compare it to.”
Pushing Andover’s lead before the diving event to 46-16, Cao, Heson Oh ’14 and Andrew Xuan ’13 took first, third and fourth place respectively in the 50 Freestyle with 22.71, 22.99 and 23.40.
Andover then went on to take second, third and fourth place in the diving event, with Kade Call ’14 scoring 146.85, Thomas Bakken ’14 with 136.80 and Graham Johns ’14 with 128.70.
The team then returned to the pool to claim the top three spots in Andover’s strongest event, the 100 Butterfly. Faller delivered an impressive time of 53.56 for first place, followed by Chris Li ’15 with 57.83 and Xuan with 58.61.
“The biggest challenge we faced was to get in the right mindset for the meet and not take it too lightly,” said Teo. “We knew that we would have to be racing the clock as well as our teammates without much competition from the opposition.”
“Everyone gave it their all and swam hard,” said Cao. “The team is responding well to the practices we’ve had this whole season.”
After Oh won the 100 Freestyle with a time of 50.25 and Alex Li delivered a personal best of 51.48 for third, Wynter and Simpson again tried their hands at a new event, the 500 Freestyle. Wynter became the twelfth fastest performer in school history with his winning time of 4:52.57, followed by Teo in second with 4:54.83 and Simpson in third with 5:05.28.
To cap off Andover’s scored events, the powerhouse team of Faller, Oh, Xuan and Travis Bouscaren ’14 dominated the 200 Freestyle Relay in 1:31.30 for first. Yang, Fraser, Chris Li and Marcello Rossi ’16 took second with 1:35.54. With a 70 point lead, Andover competed the rest of the meet in non-scoring exhibition.
“Despite not swimming regular events, the meet was still a great opportunity to practice racing as our team looks forward to Easterns in a few weeks,” said Simpson. “The Hopkins meet was a good indicator of the potential we have as we begin our taper and face even more challenging competition in the coming weeks.”
Faller added, “I’m looking for all the guys to step up and show everyone just how much we’ve improved over the course of the season, and remind everyone why we’re the top team in our league.”
Andover prepares for its final meet of the season against Exeter on February 16.
