After a strong and helpful preseason, the team is looking to expand their vocabulary to include the phrase “Maryland State Champions.”

Their first scrimmage was against Richard Montgomery and Rockville on Dec. 2. Richard Montgomery won states last year, so this was expected to be a challenging meet for the Patriots. “I think that everyone was looking forward to that meet because we were very much the underdogs in the meet and we wanted to prove that we belonged in the same league as them,” senior Maddy Adams said.

Since it was a scrimmage, there were no official score from the meet.

The team’s first meet was against Northwest on Dec. 9. Although the team battled hard and dominated most of their events, the girls’ team lost 96-89 and the boys’ team won 97-86. “It was a really close meet. We were kind of shorthanded because a good amount of swimmers were at the holiday invitationals, but we fought hard nonetheless,” captain and senior Lauren Woodward said.
In the first event, the boys’ 200-yard medley relay, a team consisting of freshman Jonathan Odim, junior Aaron Lazar and seniors Jonathan Yune and Jeffery Qin finished second with a time of 1:41.16, just 2.02 seconds behind first place. But the girls’ 200-yard medley relay did not disappoint, as a team consisting of freshman Joy Shi, sophomores Cece Zhao and Rita Zhang and junior Maddie Grainger finished in a first place with a time of 1:57.74, six seconds ahead of the second place finishers.

In the girls’ 200-yard freestyle, freshman Laura Chen finished first with a time of 2:07.97, seven seconds ahead of the next finisher. In the 200-yard IM the girls did not disappoint as freshman Grace Li finished second with a time of 2:27.03 and senior captain Elizabeth Carlson finished seventh with a time of 2:50.81. The boys were dominant in the 200-yard IM as well as senior captain Jeffrey Qin finished second with a time of 22.65 and freshman Jonathan Odim finished fourth with a time of 23.18.

Both the girls and the boys were also commanding in the 50-yard freestyle; for the girls’, Zhang finished first with a time of 25.74 while for the boys, Qin finished in second with a time of 22.65. “Both the boys and the girls did really well in the meet and we did really well against the defending state champions and we believe we can take that crown from RM,” Adams said.

The team’s next meet was against Sherwood on Dec. 16, too late to be included in this issue.

Maxwell Redding

Staff Writer