Kentridge
With new coach Michael Dobner, Kentridge had reason to enter the boys swim season with an optimistic mood. After placing seventh at state last year, the Chargers recently competed its first season meet Nov. 29 against Thomas Jefferson.
“The team performed excellent to start the season,” Dobner wrote in an email interview.
In his second year with Kentridge, Dober was an assistant coach last year before replacing Erin Schulze this season.
Dober wrote that he intends to continue the success from last year and build upon the strong base.
“Our team performed outstanding last year,” he said. “The season was a huge success. Overall, our team had great teamwork in our practice and at meets. I love their attitude and motivation to figure out and pick up any skill that they want to add to their stroke to improve their time.”
With 21 new swimmers out of 36 total, Dobner has had to teach his athletes more than swimming. He initially had to use an interpreter to effectively communicate with the swimmers as the assistant coach because he is deaf.
“I have loved coaching since seventh grade,” Dobner wrote. “It takes a lot to learn how to communicate. When I am with a new team, it will take a while to learn the communication between the team and I.”
Dobner wrote the team has not had any difficulty learning sign language.
“Luckily, I was assistant coach last year and the head coach helped me if I did not understand the swimmers,” he wrote. “It takes time to learn how they speak, and later on they will know how to communicate with me better.”
Dobner also writes most of the workout sets on paper so the swimmers can read it before practice.
“It’s a lot of the foundation that I put myself together in my coaching skills in order to be a successful coach,” he said.
Despite the influx of new swimmers, Dobner wrote he expects the team to improve.
“My expectations for this team is for them to show their commitment, communication and support,” he wrote. “I am pretty excited about this year and there will be lots of fun competition. We have been undefeated for six seasons. I am sure that we will not have a problem in continuing another undefeated season.”
Several returners include sophomore Chase Bulitz, who placed second in state in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle. Dober is convinced he will break the school records in the 50 and 100 freestyle, as well as the 100 fly, which are currently held by Greg Hulse, one of the assistant coaches.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a freshman, who is so young and incredibly fast…before in my coaching career,” Dobner wrote. “I am eying several swimmers who will have a breakout during this season, but we will see how that goes.”
• Kentwood
After competing in their first meet of the season Dec. 1 against Auburn Riverside, the Conks are optimistic about their upcoming season.
Although they lost by a close margin, the team managed to achieve 77 personal records.
“That’s incredible,” coach Sharon Wright said. “We did amazing.”
Much of this improvement is due to last year, when the team consisted of 24 swimmers, 12 of whom were freshman who had little to no experience in swimming.
“I did a lot of educating last year in the program,” she explained. “Last year was challenging. They didn’t know anything about high school swimming. Last year was not about the total score. It was about educating in high school sports, scoring and training.”
With a strong foundation built by returners like Kevin Maloy, John lye Davis and Logan Stoick, Wright believes that the time invested in teaching the freshman from last year will yield a strong return this season.
“I feel like we’ve improved a lot,” sophomore Brian Wright said. “When we’re seniors, we’re going to be really fast.”
Leading them, however, is senior diver Jesse Denert, who set school-record performance at last years district meet of 333.5. At the league meet, he took first place with 328 points. He went on to place seventh at state.
“He’s pretty phenomenal,” Wright said. “Just an amazing individual.”
Denert took first place at the Dec. 1 meet with a total of 250 points of out six dives.
“It’s not where I want to be at the end of the season,” Denert said. “But, it’s better than last year.”
At last year’s state championship, Denert played the Star Spangled Banner on his violin before competing.
“It was really fun,” he said. “I’ve never done improvising, but it was fun to play around the pool. It has such a big sound.”
Like Wright, Denert feels the team’s improvement is beginning to show.
“Not knowing times, it seems that everyone’s working hard,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of depth.”
“We’re a lot faster and a lot bigger,” sophomore Dane Lalime said. “It’s a good thing because the team is still developing, which means we’re going to get better and better.”
• Kentlake
After finishing fourth at last year’s South Puget Sound League and seventh at state, Kentlake is hoping to recover from losses due to graduation.
Coach Seth Dawson said he has quite a few newcomers to the sport.
“There are a lot of kids new to swimming in general,” Dawson said. “We lost a ton of seniors.”
Compounding that is the much smaller team. Although they won their first meet Dec. 1 against Kent-Meridian, Dawson stated the team will need to regain its depth.
“We’ve got a smaller team than we did last year,” Dawson said. “We’ve got a young team. It’s going to be challenging and a lot of work. It’s kind of one of those rebuilding years.”
Returning swimmers include junior Eric Fulmer, who swam fifth in the 200 medley and seventh in the 100 backstroke.
Dawson hopes they will be able to compete at state in several relays, though he added “it’s going to be tough.”
• Kent-Meridian
The Royals started the season with a rough start, with only half of its swimmers able to compete at its first meet Dec. 1 against Kentlake. Coach Aaron Von stated only 11 out of 27 swimmers were able to compete due to their inability to pay the $100 necessary or grades, as the financial situation has hit students hard.
“All of the KM families don’t have that sort of money,” he said.
Fortunately, the team will benefit from Von’s experience. It is his 11th year coaching. Since 2000, he acted as assistant coach and just this year took over as head coach.
“There are a lot more responsibilities,” he said. “But it’s fun.”
Last year Kent-Meridian achieved its first win in seven season, and Von looks to add more this year with performances by seniors Matt Rolan and Seth Christiansen, in addition to sophomore Dominic Travers-Leer.
“Hopefully we can change that,” he said. “This is definitely by far the biggest turnout we’ve had in years. I’m expecting good things out of Dominic for the next couple of years.”
• Tahoma
The Bears have two main goals coming into this season, according to coach Katie Standford.
One, to have 60 percent of the team make it to league. Two, to make compete in more than one event.
So far, she said, they are well on their way to reaching those goals.
“The team’s going well,” she said. “It’s a smaller team this year.”
In fact, after a having a 63-member team last year, Standford said she was forced to cut for the first time since she took over as coach in 2008. Now at 40 swimmers and five divers, she has also added two new assistant coaches, Nicole Franz and Steven McGee.
Standford said the emphasis in training will be “breaking down strokes and bringing it back to basics before we get to speed.”
Last year, the team had a 5-3 league record, placed sixth at the league meet, and set a state record for 200-yard medley team.
“The team did really well last year,” Standford said. “The boys worked really hard.”
The Bears have had a setback, however, with the departure of junior Steven Chin, who last year competed in the 100 butterfly. He placed seventh, but ultimately was disqualified due to a false start.
Standford explained that Shin was able to be on the team due to band, which holds it state competition on the same weekend.
“He couldn’t compete at both,” she said. “He’s hoping to come back next year.”
Returning swimmers include senior Josh Benson, juniors Mitch Halbert and Michael Cox as well as sophomore Tyler Rink. In addition to the team goals, the swimmers also have individual accomplishments they are hoping to make by the end of the season.
Halbert, who participated on the 200 medley relay team last year, hake it to state and set a record.
“I’m anticipating the meet,” he said. “I can’t wait for state.”
Benson said he’s concentrating on shortening his 200 yard time, as well as the team’s 400 medley relay time, 3:28.77, which broke the state record.
“We’ll break it again,” Benson said.
