After a tough early season health-wise for many members of Eden Prairie High School’s boys swim and dive team, the group found its rhythm last weekend with a Lake Conference dual meet win and a top-2 finish at the Maroon and Gold Invite.
On Friday, Jan. 3, the team traveled to St. Michael-Albertville (STMA) High School for an away meet, delivering strong swims to dominate with final scores of 102-82 for varsity and 78-67 for junior varsity.
Less than 24 hours later, the team piled onto another bus to travel to the University of Minnesota’s Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center for the annual Maroon and Gold Invite on Jan. 4. In a field of 13 teams in the division, Eden Prairie finished second with 512 points, while Rochester Century led with 549. Breck-Blake placed third with 363 points, and East Ridge High School followed in fourth with 347.5.
Sam Kendall, who is in his second year as the team’s head coach, said, ”It’s been a pleasure watching a team of boys from different grades, skill levels, and goals come together as a whole so far this season. This group has been through plenty of adversity with injuries and sickness plaguing the first month of the season, so a huge shout out to not just one or two individuals, but the entire team for stepping up at STMA and Maroon and Gold and having some incredible swims/dives.”
Vincent Schulze, one of the team’s senior captains, said he was happy with how the season is going, especially with how the team performed at the Maroon and Gold Invite.
“We had tons of great swims, and the team was locked in for that meet even though we had a dual meet against STMA the night before,” Schulze said. “It gave us a glimpse of what the end of the season will look like, and it was a good one.”
Schulze said he thinks the “optimistic and supportive” team’s biggest strength is its demonstrated capacity for improvement.
“We have had a lot of surprises by some of the guys’ times, and it has given us hope that this end of season will be more successful than last year,” he said. “No one really knows yet how far we can go and we have a lot of training ahead to get better.”
He also credited the team’s strong bench of younger swimmers, many of whom are in their first year of high school swim and dive, who have been turning out increasingly fast times: “They have had a lot of fun and gotten a lot better, so I can’t wait to see how they do.”
Schulze also praised Kendall; Eva Potvin, the assistant swim coach; and Gabbie Poole, the dive coach. “The coaches have been great this season,” he said. “They know how much potential we have. They are doing their best to maximize that and are super supportive.”
Schulze said that in addition to the section and junior varsity conference meets at the end of the season, he’s looking forward to swimming against the combined Chanhassen/Chaska High School team on Jan. 21 at Pioneer Ridge Middle School. “Chan/Chaska will be a super close and fun meet,” he said. “This is also the first time we have swam against them in a dual meet in a while.”
The team’s next dual meet is an away meet against Minnetonka High School at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 10, at the Minnetonka Middle School East Aquatic Center, 17000 Lake Street Extension, Minnetonka. The team’s next home meet will be against Wayzata on Friday, Jan. 17.
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