Boys' swim team takes eighth at Metros

The boys' swim team finished eighth out of 55 teams that competed at the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championship on February 22 and 23. The Blazer team boasted a new Blair record in the 200-free relay event with a time of 1:31.13 in preliminaries. The event placed sixth in Finals and was only one of the team's six finishes in the top ten. The meet was comprised of both public and private school teams from the metropolitan region including D.C. and Virginia.

Senior Byron Drumheller met high expectations with a spectacular fourth place finish in the 50-freestyle event with a time of 22.14. Drumheller was also an essential component of the team's success in two relay events, the 200-yard free relay and the 200-yard medley relay, both of which placed sixth.

Other key contributors to the relay successes were Senior Matthew Collogan and Junior Ian Mackinnon. Other members of the relay teams were juniors David Madej and Andrew Lee.

Collogan posted some of his best times of the season in the 50 and 100-yard freestyle events and expressed satisfaction regarding his personal performance and the performance of the team at Metros. "The Blair boys had one of their strongest showings in a long time," Collogan said. "We got stronger throughout the season and have a lot of depth, it showed."

The girls finished at Metros in a similar fashion to their regular season, holding their own but struggling to place. The team finished in a three-way-tie for 28th place out of 55 teams with a score of 11 points.

Junior Leah Cowdrey and senior Kelly Jacobs were the only two swimmers from the girls team to qualify for finals. Although Cowdrey expressed disappointment in her personal performance she was proud to have represented the girls team at the competition. "It's great that some of us got into Finals," she said.

The metro meet was preceded by the county meet which took place on February 15 and 16. The boys' team clinched second place at Counties while the team placed fifth overall. This placement qualified the Blazers to move up to Division I for the 2002-2003 season.

Although the team acknowledges that the Division I competition will be significantly more demanding for both the boys and girls teams, they are up for the challenge. "Division I will be a lot of competition, but good competition. Hopefully it will push us to work harder and swim faster," Cowdrey said.