Blair boys march past Magruder in swim meet

JAN. 28, MONTGOMERY COLLEGE (TAKOMA PARK) -

The boys' swim team took another victory today against the Magruder Colonials, bringing their undefeated record to 5 - 0 after a win of 93 - 78. This winning streak has led to the Blair boys' team's fourth place ranking in The Washington Examiner's local swimming ranks. The girls' team underwent another disappointing loss of 71 - 100, bringing their record to 1 - 4, but the meet was not a complete loss for the girls as senior captain Kelsey Dean set a new record in the 200 IM.

According to senior captain Tyler Wilchek, the boys' team knew before going into the meet that it was likely Blair would win, and as a result the Blazers' lineup was expanded to allow more swimmers to participate and gain experience. As a result, the boys' team took home much fewer victories than usual: only four, as compared to last week's eight. However, this did not affect the outcome, as Blair still beat Magruder by 15 points.

The Blazers took a ten-point lead in the first event, the 200 Medley Relay, where Wilchek, sophomore Eddie Tang and juniors David Vuong and captain Robert Feasley swam over seven seconds faster than their competitors for an easy first place. Wilchek also took first in the 50 Free, and sophomore Yang Yang took two easy victories in the 200 IM and 100 Breast.

The meet was not without confusion. During the boys' 500 Free, three swimmers - two of them Blazers - stopped two laps short of finishing the 20-lap race, only to shortly take off again to complete the final 50 feet. According to coach David Swaney, this occurred due to a mistake with the "counters," swimmers on each team who hold plastic cards underwater at the end of the pool to help keep the 500 Free swimmers on track. "The swimmer for Magruder's counter missed a card, so [the swimmer] thought he was finished before he was, so he stopped at the wall before he was done. Then our swimmers thought they were done, so they stopped," he said. The swimmers were not disqualified because their feet never touched the bottom, even though they had grabbed onto the wall. However, the mistake hurt the Blair swimmers, especially junior David Goode, who was trying to get a qualifying time for Metros.

The Blair girls began the meet strong, and were neck and neck with the Colonials for the first half of the meet. They quickly lost their momentum during the second half, allowing a one-point deficit at the half to become a 29-point deficit. The girls only took two victories home, one in the 200 Medley Relay where freshman Melanie Snail, junior captain Sally Chang and seniors Diana Frey and captain Kelsey Dean won by a little over a second.

The second victory was Dean's, in the 200 IM, where she broke a Blair record with a time of 2:24.52. Dean was nearly seven seconds faster than the second place swimmer.

According to senior captain Anna Chiplis, "The meet was really exciting for the girls because at the half we were only down by one point. The girls still had a good meet, and we had times close to everyone's best times." Chiplis added that Snail nearly broke the Blair 100 Back record, but missed by a few milliseconds.

Blair's next meet will be against Whitman at the Takoma Park campus of Montgomery College on Saturday, Feb.4 at 1 p.m.