Coming dangerously close to breaking the school record, the 200 Medley Relay team of Derrick Choi ’09, Curtis Hon ’10, Jimmy Brenner ’10 and Asa Harrington ’09 sped in to a finish with a time of 1:43.76, the highlight of the Hopkins meet. This week, Co-Captains Brendan Deveney ’09 and Steven Lee-Kramer ’09 continued to lead Andover’s ?Boys Varsity Swimming to an amazing season. Although the team suffered a devastating loss to St. Johns Prep on Wednesday, they completely dominated Hopkins last Saturday. Despite this setback, Andover was able to persevere and yet again dominate. The meet began with Andover in full control, winning the 200 Medley Relay in 1:43.76, with a team consisting of Choi, Hon, Brenner and Harrington. Curtis Hon ’10 then gave Hopkins a run for their money in the next event, the 200 Individual Medley, sweeping first place, the second of his total four wins in the meet. The 50 Freestyle was the next event, where Brenner closed out the first half of the meet with a first place finish in a time of 22.97, while Will Falk-Wallace ’10 finished third. Diving began shortly after, where Hopkins completely dominated by winning first and second place. Despite Hopkins’ dominance, a steadily improving Thomas Kramer ’11 won third place. As the meet resumed, Andover led 47-31. Hopkins was able to fight through and take the next couple of events. Despite the losses, a sure highlight of the meet was the 200 Freestyle Relay. The team, consisting of Hon, Brenner, Lee-Kramer and Deveney ’09, came extremely close to breaking the school record, but just missed it and finished with an excellent time of 1:29.02. Hon completed his sweep of events in the 100 Backstroke. Andover closed the meet on Saturday with a score of 107-77. Andover’s next opponent, St. John’s Prep was a challenging one. St. John’s has been a swimming powerhouse the last couple of years and given Andover a lot of trouble. Andover knew that if one team could break their undefeated streak, St. John’s would be the team to do it. Despite their best efforts, Andover was 40 points short at the end of the first half. During the diving portion of the event, Kyle Ofori ’09 came through with a fantastic performance, blowing away the competition while coming in with a personal best of 200 points. His victory provided a spark to the dull Andover performance. After steadily coming back in the second half of the meet, it all came down to the 400 Freestyle Relay, where both teams were tied going into the last 50 yards of the event. With just ten yards left, St. John’s began to pull away. Coming down to the last stroke, the St. John’s swimmer gave one last push and finished one tenth of a second ahead of his Andover opponent. Will Faulkner ’09 said, “St. John’s was the most talented team on our schedule, and therefore was the biggest testament to the team’s strength this year. Though we started the meet very slowly, the team’s ferocious comeback at the end of the meet lets everyone know that we are still one of the top teams in the Northeast.” As hard as they fought, the end of the meet concluded with St. John’s ending Andover’s undefeated season with a score of 96-94.
