With no state tournament last season and a slight pause over winter break this year, boys swim and dive continues to work hard for the upcoming postseason, head swim coach Erin Rodriguez said. Due to the rising numbers of COVID-19, the team had to take practices off over winter break and separate into two campuses.

Swimmer Quinlan Collins ‘23 was really affected by the separation of teams and lost a sense of connection throughout the program. 

“Some of my teammates and myself were lucky enough to keep swimming over the break,” Collins said. “The separation was troublesome and created a struggle for the team.”

Head dive coach Julie McDermott had three players out sick, but since it’s a smaller team, they were able to stay well connected through the break.

“It’s really nice having everyone back together again [this year], ” Rodriguez said. “Last season was tough, so we are trying to avoid as many issues with COVID-19 as possible.” 

Despite these struggles, the team is able to stay engaged with each other in and out of the pool, to compete proficiently at upcoming meets and create a great group of friends, Jack Wanless ‘22 said.

“Our team this year is a great, hardworking, passionate, and respectful group of guys that love the sport and continue to persevere everyday,” Wanless said. “We all appreciate each other’s work and efforts in practice and [at] meets, which makes it a warm and welcoming environment.”

Rodriguez is able to see the connection in her players and hopes this will benefit their performance at the meets leading into sectionals.

“They really have each other’s back and they have a lot of fun,” Rodriguez said.  “I’m excited to see how everything shapes together going into sectionals because of their relationships with each other.” 

As a first-year diver, Ian Hunt ‘22 is a great support for his teammates and is excited to see the outcome heading to sectionals. Hunt had never dived prior to this season. He only had experience flipping on his trampoline and some gymnastics classes. 

“Committing to a new trick is the difficult part of diving, as well as the mastery part, but as a team we are winning the majority of our competitions,” Hunt said. “I don’t expect to make sectionals personally, but I will expect the best divers on our team to surely be prolific in the tournament.” 

Rodriguez hopes for Collins and Colin Bade ‘22 to perform well at sectionals, as they have consistently won the events they have been in and show exceptional work in practice.

“They have both really stepped up their leadership this year and I can always count on them,” she said.

For diving, McDermott sees Alec Paras ‘22 and Matt Adler ‘24 as very promising athletes and expects them to compete well in future competitions.

“We have really hard competition coming up,” she said. “I hope good divers will push them to do well.”

Both swim and dive will be losing a fair amount of seniors after this season and hope to gain more athletes to perform well next year.

“Next season, I look forward to a really strong team of leaders that will take the place of the soon to be graduated seniors,” Rodriguez said.

The boys swim and dive team will compete next in sectionals on Feb. 19 at LT in the SC pool at 1 p.m..