WICHITA, Kan.—
The swim team at Wichita Collegiate School hasn't seen many days, but it's about to see some good ones. In its four years of existence, the Spartan swimming team has gone from scraping up enough swimmers to form a relay team to being a team to watch at the league meet.The team had eight members in 2011-12. The Spartans will return six swimmers from that team. The returning six are seniors Sam Horner and Rhys Powell, junior Jake Barrett, sophomores Mikey Hoeckel, Trent Pirner, and Andrew Steele. The 2012-13 team has almost doubled, adding seniors Patrick Maloney, Karsten Barragree, Dusty Youngman and Mike Choi, junior Jack Naron and freshman Ben Broberg.
"I'm very excited to begin our season on November 12th," said Coach Randy McVay. "Each member of the team is going to play an integral part in our swim team's success this year."
The team will have its returning state medalist relay team competing again. Last year the team of Powell, Horner, Barrett and Trent Pirner took sixth place in the 200 Medley Relay, seventh place in the 400 Freestyle Relay, and eighth place in the 200 Freestyle Relay. The team hopes to finish in the top three in the relays this year as well as better finishes in each of the individual events at state.
"I'm looking forward to being able to compete at meets this year as a team," said returning state medalist Powell. "We have a bigger team, so we can compete for the league title. I'm also looking forward to state. We have all four members of our relays returning and hopefully we can get into the top three this year."
The team as a whole is anticipating the season because now the team can field a No. 1 and No. 2 relay in each event, a first for the school. The team starts practice on November 12th and its first meet is on November 29th in Emporia.
