Boys swimming snags second at state
Cade Vruggink ’17 competing in the 100 yard butterfly earlier this season at the home pool.
It came down to 37 points. The swimmers and divers performed solidly from start to finish. Even after a tough disqualification in the first race, all swimmers rebounded and won eight out of the 12 events.
In the end, Cranbrook took home first place with 352 points, and East closely behind at 315. The third place team, Chelsea, was a staggering 120 points behind East, so the meet was largely a competition between Cranbrook and East. Grant Williams ‘17 also raised the tally by winning the Division III diving competition. He was seeded fourth, and won the whole thing after a rough transition year for boys diving.
Andy MacGregor ‘16, previous holder of the 200 freestyle record, broke it again with a scathing 1:39.79 time, winning the race.
Christian Bart ‘18 came through for the 200 IM, at 1:50.61.
Griffin Sheline ‘17 praised Bart for his performance, “He’s all around a good team leader, and he’s pretty fast.”
Sheline attributed the team’s success to some of the team bonding activities they participated in throughout the year. Throughout the season we did a lot of team building activities, which allowed us to get a lot closer together.”
Sheline identified team breakfasts, dinners at each other’s houses and other group meetings. Nathan Hein ‘16 had a different view regarding the team’s success.
“There was no specific thing for our success. It’s just that every day we’ve worked hard, we’ve listened to what our coaches and we tried to work on little things like technique. It kind of all just came together in the end.”
“That and hours of hard training at the pool,” Sheline said.
The boys took home wins in 50 free, 100 butterfly, 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle relay, and 400 free relay as well, swimming effectively in all eight races they won.”
Hein highlighted Mac- Gregor, Bart and himself once again as key swimmers.
“We all had first place finishes, so we’re probably the biggest contributors, but everybody really stepped up. Trent Magers ended up winning the consolation final, which is big,” said Hein.
Cade Vruggink, Joe Murphy and Chris Steers were other solid swimmers in Hein’s eyes, helping the team win all the relays they participated in.
Hein blew the spectators’ standards out of the water when he bested a professional swimmer, Michael Andrew.
“He was having a really bad day,” said Hein, staying humble.
