The water splashed, as purple and blue caps raced against each other, each trying to get the best of the other so that they would win the meet. On Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, both teams met, determined to beat the other. In each event, they would be racing to the bitter end.

“We’ve had a lot of people leave the team recently,” admitted Skyline head coach Mo-Jo Isaac. “At the beginning of the season I would have loved to win the state tournament, but now with the number of people that have left, I am determined to have Skyline win the tournament to show that we didn’t need the people to help us win.”

The meet began with a 200 medley relay. Both teams swimming at their maximum speed, Pioneer obtained first, third, and fifth place giving them ten points with Skyline close behind obtaining second, fourth, and sixth place giving them six points.

The meet would move onto the 200-yard freestyle, where Pioneer would gain another seven points, putting them at 17 points, and skyline capturing nine points. The race would include a close match between Skyline’s Sam Jyawook (1:44.61) and Pioneer’s Matthew Segal (1:46.80) with Jyawook finding enough speed at the end of the race to out-touch Segal.

As the meet moved on to the 200-yard individual medley, Skyline would begin to close the gap of the scores. Skyline swimmers David Cleason (2:02.01) and Sam Konigsberg (2:02.20) would score 10 points for their team; as Bolin Li (2:03.88), Dylan Bao (2:07.14), and Shashank Chandru (2:09.51) would score six points for Pioneer. This race would bring Both Skyline’s and Pioneer’s scores up to 23 points each.
The final race before the diving event would be the 50-yard freestyle. As always, the 50 freestyle was a close race with Pioneer’s Adam Orringer-Hau beating out Skyline’s Wilson Noll, Kareem El-Tawil, and Shane MacNeil. The score before the diving event resulting in 32-30 Skyline.

The diving event would be a competition not only between two teams, but two friends that were almost as good as each other. Henry Schirmer from Skyline and Cole Tremewan from Pioneer had been diving together for years and had both been coached by Skyline’s diving coach Ed Goodman.

Throughout diving, Tremewan began to beat Schirmer, but when Tremewan has a slight mistake on his fifth dive Goodman quietly said, “He has a window,” which Schirmer quickly dove into obtaining the points necessary for winning the diving event.

   The first swimming event after the diving event would be the 100-yard butterfly. It would be a close battle between Orringer-Hau and Skyline’s Ben Keith, but in the end, Orringer-Hau (53.02) would overtake Keith (54.83) with Skyline Derek Mrachko (57.75), Pioneer Tyler Sakalys-Moore (57.84), and Skyline Noll (57.86) scoring points for their respective teams as well.

The next race would be the 100-yard freestyle, where Jyawook and Segal would once again race each other to the bitter end with Jyawook (48.11) just barely touching out Segal (48.42) at the end of the race. With Skyline starting to take a lead with points, the next race would decide the rest of the meet.

At this point in the meet, the scores were still close, with Skyline at 58 points and Pioneer with 52. The next event would be the 500-yard freestyle, where Skyline’s Cleason (4:49.45) would win the event, with his teammate Keith Kozmo (4:56.80) coming in close behind. To secure a victory Skyline’s third swimmer Atticus Dewey would have to secure the third place spot of the event, but with Pioneer’s Li racing Dewey for the finish, it would be a sprint to the end of a distance event. The two swimmers raced the last 25 yards with Dewey (5:04.56) beating out Li (5:05.12) for the race. The score between the two teams would now be 71-55, Skyline’s lead.   The next race would be the 200-yard freestyle relay. Pioneer would secure the first, fourth, and fifth place spots, moving their team score up to 64. Skyline would secure the second and third place spots, moving their team score up to 78.

After the relay came to the 100-yard backstroke. Skyline’s main backstroke swimmer Konigsberg (54.89) would come in first, with Pioneer’s Sakalys-Moore (57.26) coming in second. Taking the other points from the event would be Skyline swimmers Matteo Procoppe (59.01), Dewey (59.72), and Pioneer swimmer Koa Williams (101.52).

The last individual event of the night would be the 100-yard breaststroke. Pioneer swimmers Bao (100.15), and Kyle Liu (101.15) would get first and second places with Skyline swimmer El-Tawil (103.53) coming in third, and Pioneer swimmers Angus Fan (105.40) and Anthony Gibbons (106.40) coming in fourth and fifth.

The final event of the night would be the 400-yard freestyle relay. Pioneer would capture the second and fourth spots of the event ending their night with a total of 83 points, and Skyline capturing the first, third, and fifth spots ending their night with 103 points.

“This meet was only the beginning of our season,” Isaac said. “We’re going to get faster, stronger, and smarter so that when we come back next time, we’ll blow off all the limits of what people thought we were capable of.”