This season for the Blake/Breck Boys’ Swim and Dive team looks very promising according to captain Christopher Chang ‘19. The team recently had their tryouts which consisted of the T-30 trial. During the T-30, swimmers swim at the fastest pace they can maintain for thirty minutes, to see how many lengths they can complete. Chang notes that “the bar for varsity used to be eighty [lengths] and that’s the top twenty people and now we have seventeen go over 100 lengths.” Unfortunately, this meant that many swimmers who were hoping to be on varsity are on junior varsity. However, as Spencer Okoronkwo ‘22 states, “if you’re on JV this year, you can still letter, and so they made all these different rules so it makes it more fair for people who didn’t get on varsity.”

Moreover, the bulk of the team is now made up of the junior and senior classes. Chris explains, “My year and the year below us has been the bulk of the team…since eighth grade.” While other sports teams at Blake have great amounts of young talent, Boys’ Swim and Dive relies on its core group of upperclassmen who have been improving for the last five years. This could be a contributing factor to the surge of talent at tryouts. Additionally Michelle Carlson, previously an assistant coach, has become the head coach. Newcomers Brian Wright and Taquina Kindle have also joined Carlson, rounding out this season’s coaching staff. With the combination of seasoned swimmers and new coaches, Chang knows that the team has high expectations, and is “probably looking at the state title.” A state title is an incredible achievement in its own right, but this would be the team’s third consecutive championship and could cap off a historic era of success for the Blake/Breck Boys’ Swim and Dive team.