Feature Photo By: Izzy Honey –Senior Isaiah Cheeks practices his diving form during practice. At the meet on Friday, Cheeks placed 1st in the diving event.
The boy’s swimming season is now under way. With the first two meets already completed, the swimmers say they are looking forward to a successful season.
Unlike many sports programs at Rangeview, the boy’s swim team is a coagulation of swimmers from schools all over the Aurora Public Schools district, including Hinkley, Gateway, Vista Peak, and William Smith.
The first swim meet was last Friday; the APS team took first.
“I definitely had a stronger meet on Friday than I did on Saturday,” senior Sean Hackworth said. “My times were obviously not the best because it’s still the beginning of the season and as the season progresses, I will do better individually. However, overall we did very well.”
On Saturday, the team placed 6th out of 11 teams at the Lightning Invite at the Veteran Memorial Aquatics Center.
Senior Darrin Fauser agrees with the success the team had at the first two meets, saying, “We made new pool and league records for almost every event and we had five people make it to state.”
The pool records broken were records for swimming events specifically at the pool at Hinkley High School. One of the records broken was a diving record, broken by senior Isaiah Cheeks.
Of the five Rangeview swimmers who qualified for the state meet last year, only two have returned to the swim team this year. Fauser qualified for the 400 freestyle relay and Cheeks — a ranked diver last year — competed in the diving event and a relay event.
According to Hackworth, the team this year is full of swimmers who also participate in club swimming. On days where the club swimmers attend school practices, the work-outs are more tailored to building endurance and solidifying techniques.
“The days that [the club swimmers] aren’t [at practice], we have a lot more technique workouts,” said Hackworth, “so we have an opportunity for those times to focus on things individually as well as get individual help from the coaches. When the club swimmers are there, we have days where we have harder workouts which help us to win meets.”
Senior Matthew Johnson is the only Rangeview swimmer who participates in both school swimming and a club team.
Coach Beth Himes commented, “He is a year round swimmer but has decided to swim for the APS team this season. He already has a state time in one individual event and two relays. He will bring a lot of swimming experience to a young team. With the addition of Matthew I think we can be really competitive at the State level.”
The next swim meet for the APS team is today at 5:00 pm. The team will be competing against three other schools. Hackworth said that their hardest opponent today will be Cherry Creek High School, as they have more swimmers on the team and more club swimmers. Be sure to stay tuned for updates on the APS swim team.
