Swim & Dive places 19th at Metros

METRO SWIM & DIVE CHAMPIONSHIPS, Feb. 11—

Blair Swim and Dive (1-6) placed 19th in the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships (Metros) this Saturday with a combined score of 111 points. The girls scored a total of 74 points while the boys scored 140.

Junior co-captain Jack Foster started off the meet by taking second place in the 200 IM with a time of 1:54:02, only four seconds short of the first place winner's time. Sophomore Michael Thomas followed Foster's lead by placing fifth for the 100 fly with a time of 52:94. Freshman Brian Tsau placed fourth in 500 free, followed by Foster who placed sixth in the same event. The girls also swam well, with senior co-captain Elsa Dupre taking first in her heat for 50 free in preliminaries as well as junior Jennifer Arai who took 12th in 500 free with a time of 5:16:97.

"Overall, I think the team performed really well at Metros,” Dupre said. "A lot of people were able to achieve their best times, which was really exciting and created a really positive atmosphere for the team” she said. One of the personal record breakers was freshman Amy Zhao, who was able to beat her record in 100 back with a new time of 1:03:11 and also held a best record for Blair in the 200 IM with a time of 2:17:13.

Out of 51 girls who were diving, senior co-captain Hannah Buchek earned 15th place with a score of 256.250. She was the only girl to compete from Blair, and made it into the final round. Sophomore Brian Huang earned 21st place in the boys' diving competition. "The boys competition is always amazing and getting 21st is a very commendable feat,” Buchek said of her teammate. "Since he is only a sophomore, I look forward to reports on how he advances in the next two years.”

Junior Nick Seidell also performed well in the diving competition and will be advancing to regionals. "I look forward to Nick doing his best at Regionals next Friday. He still has another year to go even further in rankings,” Buchek said.

Overall, both Buchek and Dupre were pleased with how Blair Swim and Dive performed at Metros. "Metros is able to show what everyone on the team is able to accomplish, and now, we are able to take that into our final two championship meets this year,” Dupre said.

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