Masuk Swims and Dives Into a new Season

January 5, 2023 was the first home meet for the Masuk boy’s swim and dive team. Their competitors were Joel Barlow, Masuk came out with a win and finished with solid times overall.

The first event, the 200 medley relay, was a sweep by Masuk. All of the Masuk relay teams finished in the top three spots. This set a tone for the meet as Masuk would continue to succeed in the relay centric events, putting up two more first place finishes in the 200 freestyle relay and the 400 freestyle relay respectively.

Barlow posed a stiffer competition in the 200 freestyle; however Masuk still managed to finish in third place courtesy of junior Gavin Gabriel with a 2:27 time. Other highlights include the 50 freestyle, in which senior captain Riley Sheppard, senior Kyle Zarkar, and junior Alex Malecki swept the top three finishes. 

Other notable finishes can be seen in the 100 butterfly, 100 breaststroke and the 500 freestyle. In these events, junior Keller Hall (59.4), freshman Carter Adragna (1:06), and freshman Thomas Rodriguez (6:54) all came away with first place times corresponding to each event in order.

Overall, Masuk won in a greater majority of events and came out with a victory over Joel Barlow’s team. Their record remains positive as they go into the rest of their season and they plan to keep it that way.

The boys prepared hard for this meet, although they had the previous week off for winter break, when asked about the preparation they employed in practice, junior Andrew Radu shared “We trained hard during the week, a lot of kids were off but they came back this week and they worked very hard to improve.” Even though many may have lost their edge over the break they came back ready to compete. “We’ve got a “fuhgettaboutit” mentality here” Radu jokingly added.

The outlook was said to be generally positive coming into the competition; they were not too phased by Barlow and looked to secure another win for their record. Junior Keller Hall stated “We knew we had a chance, we knew that Barlow/Bethel is a decent team, but they lack some of the star swimmers they need.” Along with this, Hall loved the school spirit that Masuk had, saying “Masuk’s team spirit was incredible. I saw all the boys out on the side yelling, everyone lost their voice by the end”

Masuk is hoping to continue its good fortune into their following meets. When asked what aspects he would like to carry from this meet into the future, senior captain Riley Sheppard said “A lot of kids dropped times, I saw a lot of energy, it was good energy.”

If you hope to watch the Masuk boys swim and dive team compete next, you can watch them against New Milford on January 10, or the next home meet on January 24th against Bunnel/Stratford.