The St. Louis U. High varsity swim team just demolished its second dual meet of the regular season, beating the Parkway South Patriots by 78 points this past Tuesday. The 129-51 victory is the second straight for the Jr. Bills in the season, and the boys are just getting started. 

The meet, being early in the season, was a good chance for the team to mix up the lineup. Some members of the team swam in events they weren’t accustomed to, such as captain Ben Chumley, who swam a 1.52.69 second 200 free, a rare race for him. 

Along with this were some improvements among some of the new varsity swimmers.

”We had some personal bests in the 100 freestyle. Grant Heidbrink and Brendan Hunt had best times in the 100 free,” said varsity head coach Lindsey Ehret. “We’re coming off a hard training day, so yesterday was a pretty tough, short-rest practice. And to come and race the next day is admirable.”

Last week, in the meet against Parkway Central, SLUH had no divers to compete against the opposing two divers. However, one exciting event for Tuesday’s meet was the diving portion, in which freshman Abraham Malkus competed in his first ever diving meet. The new diver finished with a score of 120.50, consistently earning around four points from each of the judges on all six of his dives.

“When you can take someone who doesn't have any diving experience and get them to six dives in four weeks, that's really remarkable,” said Ehret. “And he's really taken to the board and he gets good height. He’s really open to learning, and it's translated into a lot of success as he went from  trying out for soccer to being on the freshman team.”

Having a diver is crucial for SLUH Swim and Dive because not having one is lost points. For the diving team, it’s difficult to be able to compete after just a few weeks of training because participating in the competition requires the diver to have six different types of dives practiced and memorized. Parkway South’s diver Harry Pendleton competed as well, and with his years of experience finished with a score of 213.20.

The meet wasn’t all up, as the Patriots came home with first and second in the 100 butterfly, as well as the SLUH C relay being disqualified after a false start in the third leg of the event. It is important to note that those small mistakes and blunders add up over the long term, proving that it is imperative that the varsity squad holds itself to the highest degree. 

It goes without saying that the Jr. Bills did well at this meet, and there is a bright future ahead for SLUH swim and dive.