Andover Boys Swimming dominated Suffield 115-70 to earn its sixth win of the season last Wednesday. With just one dual meet left, Andover remains undefeated thanks in part to strong performances from its relay team. An Andover relay event has now broken a pool record in five consecutive meets. The team of Jun Oh ’12, Didi Peng ’12, Tim Wynter ’14 and Joe Faller ’14 secured the pool record last week in the 200 Medley Relay, by swimming a 1:36.69 in the meet’s first event. Wynter said, “Breaking a record is never an easy task, but becoming over-confident is, though. I believe the swim team and I are neither over-confident nor do we think recording-breaking is [easy]. We try our best at every meet and with every opportunity we get to race.” A Suffield swimmer won the next two events, the 200 Freestyle and the 200 IM, but Andover rebounded in the 50 Freestyle. Jun Oh triumphed with a time of 22.60, and Faller finished 0.06 seconds later in second place. Following the diving event, Andover only had a 39-38 lead over Suffield. “The team wasn’t as distressed as we were at Deerfield, probably because we had previously beaten Deerfield. The thought that [Suffield] was possibly winning in the first half didn’t really pass our minds. But once the team noticed that we were only up by one point in the beginning of the second half, the intensity of the swims definitely began to increase,” said David Cao ’14. The increased intensity paid off immediately. After Wynter won the 100 Butterfly (53.30), the tandem of Jun Oh and Faller returned in the 100 Freestyle. Jun Oh prevailed with a time of 48.13 while Faller (48.67) earned another second place finish. Travis Bouscaren ’14 (4:56.37) proceeded to win the 500 Freestyle, and after trailing heading into the third of four legs, the Andover relay team featuring Cao, Heson Oh ’14, Faller, and Jun Oh prevailed in the 200 Freestyle Relay with a time of 1:30.05. “During the 200 Free Relay, I don’t think there was as much pressure as there was during the beginning of the half, as we had already won the previous event. After Heson and I swam, Suffield was still keeping up with us and it caused a little panic. However, when Joey [Faller] brought us ahead, we had absolute confidence in Jun that he could take an easy first for us,” said Cao. With the meet in hand, Wynter (51.84) and Peng (1:01.30) won the 100 Backstroke and 100 Breaststroke, respectively. The meet concluded with an Andover victory in the 400 Freestyle Relay. The squad of Eric Benca ’12, Heson Oh, Captain Derrick Choi ’12 and Wynter swam the race in 3:20.19. “The Andover boys look next to the final dual meet of the season: next Saturday’s meet against Exeter, followed by a celebration marking the 100th anniversary of Andover Swimming and Diving,” said Coach David Fox. The team has much to prepare for in practice this week, especially for Interschols after Exeter. Connor Fraser ’13 said, “We’re really focused on Interschols right now. Most of our training has been geared toward that. Thinking about Suffield, we wanted to do well, but our larger goal is getting ready for March 3rd.”
