Andover Sets Two Pool Records in Back-to-Back Competition

After setting the Andover pool record in the 200-Yard Medley Relay on Friday against St. John’s Prep with a time of 1:33.82, the next day, Andover Boys Swimming & Diving also set a Suffield Academy pool record in the 400-Yard-Freestyle Relay in a time of 3:07.90, which marks the team’s fourth record-breaking performance so far this season.

The Medley relay team consisting of Co-Captain Sam Donchi ’20, Yubo Jin ’21, Co-Captain Arnold Su ’20, and Max Hunger ’20 set the pool record on Friday. Su, Hunger, Marcus Lee ’21, and Donchi set the 400-Meter-Freestyle Relay record the next day.

According to Lee, Suffield was going to be more difficult than the previous competition against Choate, and the focus was on each swimmer performing to the best of their ability in each event.

Lee said, “We knew Suffield was a tough team and that we needed to focus on our individual events and not so much about who we were competing against. [Head Coach David Fox] put his all into each and every event so that we could keep our focus on that.”

Diver Zack Peng ’21 noted that it was difficult to adjust to competing in back to back meets. Nonetheless, the team secured the top three places for diving on Saturday.

Peng said, “Everyone dove really well in general, and we placed first, second, and third. It came as a bit of a surprise because originally the meet was supposed to be at Peddie. We weren’t expecting to have back to back meets for the boys because on Friday we had St. John’s. The goal was just to dive better than we did the previous day.”

As the team approaches Easterns in early February, its focus will shift towards individual events. The team saw the two-day racing this weekend as preparation for the competition at Easterns, according to Hank Yang ’22 and Trey Wolfe ’23.

Yang said, “I think every meet is just preparation for Easterns, which is [one of] the championship meets. I think going into Suffield, we were obviously trying to get our personal best times, but also to simulate the environment of Easterns and prepare for when that time comes.”

“All of the meets leading up to Easterns are kind of like preparation for that, so each meet is like a practice within itself. This week’s going to be pretty tough. We’re starting to close in on the big end of the season meets and then we’re [probably] going to do a lot more work with speed and power for the next few meets,” said Wolfe.

Andover will next face Loomis Chaffee and Hopkins in a duel-meet at Loomis this Saturday.