Indians late push secures second place finish

John Ostermann, Online Editor-in-Chief

When the Manhattan swim team competed last Wednesday, they were battling not only their opponents but  fatigue as well. As the day wore on the Indians swim team only got more exhausted. After long practices with an intense training regiment the Indians were completely worn down.

“As team captains, we have to keep reiterating that we have to push through,” senior Cole Dudley said. “We don’t have a meet next week and we are just going to focus on working. It’s going to be hard for all of us, but this is the time that is really going to test us.”

As the Indians headed into their last race, they awaited the announcement of the team scores. But it wasn’t announced as usual. Technical difficulty halted the announcement and the final relay swimmers were forced to wait several minutes. At last the scores were announced, and the Indians trailed Washburn Rural by two points. As the swimmers began to enter the pool, the relay team knew what they needed to do.

“We were right there in Lane 5 and we looked over at them in Lane 6. We knew it was about to go down,” senior Preston Harrison said. “We were ready to race, and I think we gave it our all. We had two really good swims in there.”

The relay team blew out Washburn finishing second place by almost five seconds. Sophomore Xander Say started off with a 54.17 split. Junior Suman Wang swam next, and swam equally well finishing with a 54.15 split. Wang tagged in Dudley, who swam a 55.02 split. Harrison then anchored the team and finished strong with a 50.4 time to close the relay out in 3:33.75.

“At the end, it was pretty much a neck-and-neck competition,” Dudley said. “We were really fighting and we managed to pull that off. There was so much pressure on us, we knew we had to step up.”

Coach Alex Brown was unsure that his team would be able to pull second place out after trailing early.

“Our last three races, we looked pretty good,” Brown said. “Training is really intense right now, so we didn’t see many of the best times. I was happy with some of our competitiveness. We needed the back part of the meet to step up, and that’s what we did.”

While many of the team’s swimmers did not have their best days, Harrison was able to notch first in the 100-yard backstroke.

Junior Zane Kohl also had a successful day on the diving boards, blowing the other divers out and finishing first. Kohl finished with 241.8 points, nearly 75 better than the next closest competitor.

MHS has an off week coming up, where they will attempt to complete 100 100-yard laps, the most grueling training exercise in their books, to get them ready for league and state meets coming up in February.