Swim caps donned with a Jesuit emblem embedded on the side and goggles tightened, the swimmer grips the starting block, anxiously awaiting the starting sound. BEEP. He’s off. He glides gracefully through the water with power and finishes strong, throwing his hands onto the wall. He glances at the clock. First.
The Jesuit Swim team competed into two more meets in the month of September, losing by a slim margin against Plano and also falling short against Mckinney Boyd. The two meets took place on October 12th and 19th respectively. Although they were both losses, the team looks to rebound and come back strong for the home stretch.
Plano Meet
(Oct. 12th)
A duel meet, the two teams battled it out in a showdown that came down to 3 one-hundredths of a second, with Plano taking the victory 86-84. Although the score was very close, Coach Doug Moyse commented that it was swum “with the district meet in mind,” and as a result “we had our guys swim off-events.” According to the coach, some notable swimmers were Junior Noah Nguyen, who won both the 100 yard fly as well as the 200 IM. In addition to Noah, Ivan Lopez ’20, Jack Ayres ’17, and Patrick Daniels ’17 all competed in the 200 medley and 100 free relays and won both. Senior Eamon Stack commented that this meet “is an experience to better ourselves both physically and mentally.” The meet was overall a success even though the Rangers were not able to come up with a win.
McKinney Boyd Meet (Oct. 19th)
Sw
imming against mostly JV competition, the meet was a “test for our JV guys,” said Coach Moyse, with only a couple varsity swimmer who were “swimming off-events.” This meet saw the continued success of several up-and-coming freshman swimmers including Ivan Lopez ’20, Ryan Brown ’20, and Alexander Cho ’20, who all achieved top-three finishes. Josh Betanzos ’18 said of this meet; “This meet is a great place for us to build team chemistry, and everyone grows close. I’m really proud of our boys.” Although Jesuit lost 132-97, Coach Moyse said, “a full varsity squad would have been an entirely different outcome.”
Jesuit swim faces one of their toughest opponents Nov. 1 when they face Highland Park. As always, the swim program is focused on the district meet where they look to capture first.
Photos courtesy of Ayres photography.
