The Saint Louis U. High Varsity swim team dove into its first meet last Wednesday at the Forest Park Community College pool, a two-minute drive from SLUH’s campus. They faced off against Parkway Central, a rival from last year who had lost to the Jr. Bills by a single point. However, this year was different, as the Jr. Bills came away from the meet with a comfortable victory. 

This opening meet followed the annual “Blue and White” meet, which took place on Friday and is an exciting competition in which half of the Varsity and JV teams face off against the other half of the teams.

Every year, the swimmers look forward to the Blue and White meet as a way to show off their strength against their fellow teammates but also to prepare themselves for the first actual meet of the season against another team.

“The Blue and White meet was crazy competitive,” said sophomore Will Vieth, a new addition to the varsity team this season. “It was super fun; it led the entire team to seek to be better in order to win. I feel really optimistic about our future; at this point it’s state or bust.”

The team’s main goal this season is indeed to take the state championship title, and the meet against Parkway Central was the first step in the right direction towards this end. Various SLUH swimmers stood out in the meet, including three of the “Distance Dudes”: senior Greyson Meuller, junior Connor Dunker, and senior Jaden Yarborough, who finished 1-2-3 in the 200 free. 

Unfortunately, SLUH Swim and Dive did not have any eligible divers which caused them to lose out on points that could have been earned otherwise. Even without divers, SLUH dominated the Parkway Central Colts, with consistent finishes in the top three spots every race.

“I was pretty confident headed into the first meet today. I thought we’ve all been working really hard in practice,” said junior Will Steurer, who swam the 50 and 100 freestyle, as well as the 400 free relay at Wednesday’s meet. “We’ve got our morning lifts before school on Mondays and Wednesdays, and we’ve been swimming a lot of yards. I thought we were all pretty prepared,  and I thought all the guys were pretty close. All the new varsity members, they kind of worked their way into the team really well. They worked hard and they’re surpassing a lot of expectations.”

Some noteworthy times from the race include freshman Eliott Sapp’s 1:07.07 100 breast stroke, Steurer’s 23.02 50 free, and senior Charlie Hill’s 2:02.55 200 Individual Medley. 

Parkway Central is a tough matchup, seeing as they won the class one Swim and Dive state championships last year. Even though they’re a powerhouse, SLUH’s sheer depth of fast swimmers won them the race. Although not first place finishers, people like senior captain Ben Chumley, junior Ethan Hill, sophomore Alex Wiggins, and senior captain Evan Zimmerman all contributed greatly to the team and to take the valuable second and third place spots that helped greatly in winning the meet. 

With such a tough opponent so easily defeated, one can only wonder how far this year’s Swim and Dive squad will go.