Prep and Gonzaga compete at Easterns

By: Reach for the Wall Staff

Georgetown Prep and Gonzaga swimming and diving teams competed last weekend at the annual Eastern Interscholastic Swimming & Diving Championship in Lancaster, PA.

Boys from 30 private schools from throughout the East Coast competed, posting some of the fastest times in the nation in high school swimming and breaking several long-standing records. One of the cool features of this meet is they ran 3 heats of finals, scoring all 24 places, allowing swimmers ample opportunity to return at nigh to improve their time and place. This added some drama in the finals sessions where the ‘A’ heats were paraded out to the blocks to the chorus of cheers and pumped-up theme music. With this hyped atmosphere, the top (and other) swimmers in every event except 100 backstroke, posted a time that ranks in the top 10 in the country as monitored by SwimCloud. The Meet website has an ‘On Demand’ archive of the meet where you can catch the action:

Day 1 Finals

Day 2 Finals

Both Georgetown Prep and Gonzaga entered the meet seeking to claim bragging rights as the top team in the Washington, DC area. Prep, less than a week after winning Metros, took 14 swimmers and two divers to Easterns, while Gonzaga took 19 swimmers and four divers. Two weeks earlier, Gonzaga had won their 9^th consecutive Washington Metropolitan Private School Swimming and Diving  League (WMPSSDL) Championship.

Both teams fared well considering the almost weekly grind of championship meets starting in mid-January, so personal bests were hard to obtain. Despite their size against the larger East Coast schools, the two local Catholic Jesuit teams performed well, with Prep sending 11 swimmers back at night for finals and Gonzaga sending nine.

Top point scorer among local swimmers was Prep Sophomore Brett Feyerick, who took second in the 100 backstroke by .02 and third in the 200 IM for a total of 55 points. Gonzaga Junior Ryan Catron scored 42 points, with a fourth place finish in the 200 IM and 11^th place in 100 backstroke. Feyerick’s Sophomore teammate, David Fitch, was the third high area point with 31.

Feyerick and Fitch teamed up with fellow Sophomore Dylan Danaie and Junior Ryan Mathis to swim the Washington area’s second fastest 200 Medley Relay of the year, with an automatic All America time of 1: 33.06, placing fifth. Currently this time has Georgetown Prep ranked 22nd in the country

Among the top divers was another Prep Sophomore Gellert Kish, who placed fourth overall.  Final tally of the meet had Prep taking ninth place with 300.5 points to 11^th place finisher Gonzaga’s 281.

Prep completed their season with Easterns and Gonzaga will conclude their season February 24th at the WCAC Championships. Also competing at WCAC’s are the boys teams from: St. John’s, Good Counsel, Paul VI, O’Connell, DeMatha, McNamara, St. Mary’s Ryken and Ireton. The girls teams competing in their final meet at WCAC’s are: Good Counsel, St. John’s, Holy Cross, Paul VI, O’Connell, Seton, McNamara, St. Mary’s Ryken and Ireton.