The De Soto High School boys’ swim team competed in a meet at Turner high school on Jan. 11. This was their first meet since winter break.
“The meet went pretty well. It’s kind of hard just starting up from break, first meet back. But, it went pretty well, just getting back into the swing of things,” junior Jared Blazo said.
The team had mixed emotions as to how the meet went, especially after having the long break.
“Personally, I didn’t do great but I still feel like I did good. I’ve been exhausted. Overall, the team did great,” junior Cameron Webb said.
One of the boys’ main focuses at the meet was improving their relay times.
“One of my biggest priorities at the moment is trying to get our relay qualified [for State] so that we can bring more people there,” Blazo said. “I’d like to get everyone to pull together and function not only as an individual, but in our relays and be able to count on each other and improve.”
Blazo and Webb agreed that junior Julian Longerich played a big role in the success of their relays in the Jan. 11 meet.
“Julian really pulled through on his breast stroke there, so that was interesting,” Blazo said.
According to Blazo, most of the large teams, such as Blue Valley High School, were not at the meet, so the competition was not as stiff.
Not only did the team see improvement from the Turner meet, they have also seen huge changes from previous years.
“The team overall is doing really well. We’ve grown so much from the past years. We have the most members this year than we have at anytime in the past. Our times are better than they’ve ever been. So, yeah, it’s looking really good.”
With the season midway through, the boys are looking to improve times to meet the State qualification requirements. As of now, Blazo is the only athlete with a qualifying time, but most all have met State consideration times.
“Everyday we have practice and we go over different techniques. Some days we’ll do drill, other days we’ll work on form,” Webb said. “We’re just going to keep on working in practice, go as much as possible and keep on pushing ourselves until we can beat the times we want to beat.”