Boys swim and dive rises to the occasion on Senior Day

Owen Chiss, Assistant Sports Editor

Despite falling to Central Suburban League foes in their last three head to head meets, the Wildkit swimmers got back in the win column with a solid win over Naperville North on Senior Day. The 109-69 win on Saturday brought Evanston’s head to head record to 4-3, adding to the current resume of wins over Loyola Academy, Highland Park, Niles North.

The Kits started off strong with wins in the 200-yard freestyle by junior Lucas Macy, 200-yard butterfly by senior Owen Jennings and the 400-yard individual medley by senior Michael Pollack, who narrowly edged out a win by a mere 0.27 seconds. 

Pollack emphasized that although the win in the 400 IM wasn’t his fastest time, he was glad to have come out on top.

“I swam pretty well today. I probably could have gone a little faster, but I got the points for first which was big,” Pollack said. “We were doing college events today with two times as long of distances, so it was a really brutal event.”

The meet then shifted its focus to Evanston’s senior day ceremony, which commenced after the first half of races. In addition to the aforementioned Pollack and Jennings, the Kits will graduate ten seniors at the end of the year: Angel Gonzalez, Ben Levy, Luke Martinet, Quinten Nguyen, Max Smith, Christopher Vye, Oliver York and Jamie Young. 

The final leg of Saturday afternoon finished with strong first place performances in the 500-yard freestyle by Quinten Nguyen (5:12.95) and the 200-yard backstroke by junior Cadel Saszik (2:02.58), securing the win over the Huskies.

Pollack highlighted that the team’s strong connection out of the pool is going to guide them far into the postseason.

“[This program] is really important for me because of the sense of community we have. We’re a really open team and everyone is really close, which is very unique,” Pollack stated. “Senior Day is a great segway into the end of the season where we can start to build the hype and excitement for the [postseason].”

The Kits have two regular season tune-ups remaining at Glenbrook South and Niles West before the CSL South conference championship on February 11th.