Boys swimming begins the season on Dec. 6 when they look to outrace Naperville Central for the second consecutive year.
“Last year we beat them,” said coach Kevin Auger. “But, they have a great team so it will be a battle as usual. We have a lot of depth this year so it will be an interesting meet.”
After their meet against Naperville Central the squad heads to Barrington on Dec. 14 for the Bronco relays meet.
“This is a fun meet for us,” added Auger. “It’s early in the season and we usually come out of that meet with some good times.”
Last year the Kits won the second of the two swimming divisions. Every year the top two teams move up and the bottom two teams move down. This year ETHS is in the top division alongside Stevenson, Fenwick, Barrington, Lake Forest, Naperville North and Naperville Central.
Although the season has just begun, the team is already looking ahead to conference. The boys will battle for second with GBS, while New Trier will most likely take first.
“They have the most and the best swimmers,” explained Auger. “They also have the largest pool of swimmers to draw from.”
This year there are four senior captains: Justin Hadley, Karl Ortegon, Chris Russo and Joe Seguine-Hall.
“The captains are the leaders of the team, but we also have a great group of juniors this year,” said Auger.
The team is looking forward to a successful season but know that they have to put in the work to get the results they want.
“Everyone needs to build up their strength right now by working out and training in the pool so we are ready for our Naperville Central meet and kick off the season hard” added co-captain Chris Russo. “We will have about two weeks of in-season training before the first meet, but to really prepare for that meet we need to be prepared outside of season.”
ETHS will host the IHSA boys State meet this year.
“I’m looking forward to swimming the State meet in our pool” said Seguine-Hall.
Auger wants to see as many people get to the IHSA State meet as possible.
“It’s going to be a good season, we should win a good number of dual meets,” said Auger. “I expect we will place better at state than we have other years.”