By Alex Frazier
There’s hardly anything less certain in life than death and taxes.
Except perhaps Springfield swimming.
For the second year in a row, the Spartan boys won the Class AA District Swimming Championships.
Coach Nick Militello knew from the beginning of the year that his team was almost certain to repeat, unless of course something unexpected transpired.
“It was a struggle last year, but when we looked at districts from last year, there were a lot on non-returning seniors from other schools,” said Militello. “I knew if we won last year barely, that this following year we had a strong chance. We just had to keep focused.”
The Spartans qualified 19 swimmers for districts, filling 31 of an available 32 spots. The Spartans had four qualifiers in every event but the butterfly.
Militello even had to tell one of his swimmers that qualified that he couldn’t swim because there weren’t enough spots in his event.
“It’s the first time in Springfield’s history that we’ve ever qualified somebody and couldn’t bring them,” he said.
With a deep field heading into districts, the conclusion was almost foregone.
“I knew we had a very, very strong chance of being the runaway team,” said Militello.
Of course, he didn’t tell his swimmers that.
“They’d get lazy and swim and win, but that’s not a victory if you don’t swim your best time,” he said.
As it turned out, Militello was right. The Spartans blew out the field nearly doubling second place Upper Perkiomen 435-290.
“We all still had to try our best and push for really good times,” said freestyler Jake Oeschger.
“Winning last year pushed us more to win this year,” said senior Rocky DelMonte. “We already had the title and we were going to fight to keep it. We were pumped to go to districts. We pushed ourselves to the limit. We had the idea we were going to win, but you never know. People gun for us because we won last year.”
It seems that a key ingredient in any good team is camaraderie, and the Spartans are no different.
“We’re pretty close,” said Oeschger. “We hang out a lot together, do a lot of team bonding. We get along with each other and hang out on weekends, maybe see a movie or something. It’s really a team effort.”
DelMonte has been on the team since he was a freshman. Unlike many swimmers, he didn’t start until ninth grade. He always wanted to swim but never took the time to do it until high school.
“I didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “Starting with no experience and no knowledge of the sport and growing four years and becoming a better athlete and learning and understanding more about the sport was a good experience.”
Considering how late he started, he has made up a lot of time, not only in being named captain as a senior, but also qualifying for states by finishing third at districts in the 100 butterfly with a time of 55.08. He is seeded 24th in the fly at states.
DelMonte enjoyed his role as captain.
“This team is a lot of good kids, special kids,” he said. “Being a captain for them was a fun experience. It was a lot of responsibility, but we got it all done.”
His experience has been so rewarding, he plans on continuing swimming in college next year, hopefully at Albright. He is just waiting for his acceptance letter.
In all, the Spartans will take nine swimmers to states, including all three relays.
Oeschger, who Militello said was the best swimmer on the team, is seeded 12th in the 50 freestyle and 20th in the 100. At districts, Oeschger placed second in the 100 freestyle with a personal best 48.70 and came in third in the 50 with time of 22.02. His split of 20.8 anchoring the second-place 200 free relay was also an excellent time.
“That was really surprising for me,” he said.
The junior has been a freestyler since he started swimming at the age of 10. As a freshman he swam on the state champion 200 freestyle relay, which broke the state record with a time of 1:25.81. As a sophomore he made states in the 50 freestyle.
Besides two individual events, Oeschger is anchoring both free relays. The 200 free relay quartet of Chris McPear, John Hacking, McWiliams and Oeschger is seeded third and the 400 free team of Hacking, Bell, Fallon and Oeschger is seeded seventh.
Sophomore Mathias Bell is seeded 25th in the 100 butterfly, and Jesse Fallon is 22nd in the 500.
The medley relay team of Keith Weaver, Matt Debrio, Bell and Ryan McWilliams is seeded 17th.
The Spartans only lose two seniors this year, so they’ll be confident of another repeat next year.
“It will be exciting to see how we do next year,” said Oeschger. “Maybe hopefully win states.”
- Log in to post comments
0
