Any time a sports team has a meet, or game, at home, they are expected to defend their home court advantage. The Manhattan swimmers were in familiar territory on Wednesday as they did something that is difficult for any team to do: Stay consistent.

Manhattan dominated their first home swim meet on the sixth and came back with that same fire for this meet. Manhattan controlled their second home meet, scoring 463 points, 101 points higher than the next closest team.

“We need to insert and assert our dominance at home,” junior Suman Wang said. “These teams coming to our pool, our home, need to know that we are going to defend it. They need to know that we are better than them.”

Manhattan had eight first place finishes out of the 11 swimming events. Senior Preston Harrison led the way with a dominating 500 yard-freestyle race, finishing 21 seconds faster than fellow Indian, sophomore Xander Say. Harrison won the 100 yard-breaststroke with ease and helped his two relay teams take first place as well.

“Since the beginning of the season, my main goal has been to get everyone to understand that they are at practice to work for a team goal,” Harrison said. “Our team goal this year is to win league and it will be extremely tough for us to do that. Between Cole, Wyatt and I, we believe that everyone at practice needs to find a part of swimming that they really enjoy and then put focus into that and work as hard as they can every single day.”

The swim team will be waiting until 2018 before returning to action. They will be hosting Great Bend, Olathe South, Junction City and Olathe North as they look to continue their dominance at home.

“We have some very tough competition coming for our next two home meets,” Wang said. “We really have to sit down and get focused and put in the work so we can come away on top.”