BOYS SWIMMING: The relatively young program finished the 2000-2001 campaign with a record of 4-8.
By: Carolyn M. Hartko
As any new high school sports program seeks to establish itself, there are certain rites that help athletes and coaches put down roots in the wider school community. The South Brunswick High School swimming program will observe one of those rites of passage this June as the first four-year Viking swimmers graduate.
Both of the boys’ team captains this year, Ed Lui and Nick Kaminski, were four-year letter winners. Also leaving is two-year team member Alan Lee. Lui and Kaminski watched the program grow from a single co-ed team to separate boys’ and girls’ squads. This year, the boys’ team ended up with a 4-8 record against some high quality teams.
"The boys did have a very tough schedule," Viking head coach John Harding said. "In the course of the season, the boys faced East Brunswick and St. Joe’s, which were both ranked in the top 20 in the state."
The boys started off the season a little slow, but finally broke a three-game losing streak with a victory over Ewing. They ended their dual meet season on an up swing, too, beating Old Bridge. That set the Vikings up for one of the high lights of the season, the Greater Middlesex Conference Championships, where South improved its team total from 81 points in 2000 to 99 this year. Lui won two gold medals, and nine different swimmers earned points towards the team total.
"I think everyone did well at GMC’s," Lui said. "We had a lot of personal bests."
Lui also felt that the Vikings’ first attendance at the Pirate Invitational meet, an annual event held at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School, was another high point for the team.
"I thought the Pirate was great," Lui said. "It was a great experience as far as good competition, and getting used to a big meet."
Lui hopes to be swimming, and majoring in engineering, at Lafayette College next year. He’s leaving SBHS with four individual and three relay school records to his credit. Lui had some wishes for the Viking swimming program of the future.
"I just hope that my records will still be up there, especially for the 100 breast stroke," Lui said. "That would be great. And I would hope to see more interest in the sport. And even if my records aren’t standing anymore, it would be great to see all that talent showing up in the next 10 years."
Kaminsky’s first choice for college is Rutgers, and he’s planning on majoring in business, at least for now. He’s closing out his competitive swimming career happy that he pushed his best time in the 100 butterfly down to 1:09 this year. Where some people might think having to take a bus back and forth to practice at Mercer County College all the time was a drag, Kaminsky said that was the best time for the team to bond.
"We had a lot of fun," Kaminsky said. "Basically, you got to see people out of school at 10 o’clock at night. We were like a big family. The boys’ team was strong this year, even though it was like a new beginning. We lost a lot of people from last year, but then we got a lot of new freshmen and sophomores. It was hard, but we pulled through."
Replacing senior leadership is never easy, and the Viking swim team will have the added burden of trying to find somebody to take over Lui’s position as the top Viking point scorer.
"We’re certainly going to need some guy to come in that can really take over and be that big ‘go-to’ person," Harding said. "Or, we’re going to need a bunch more bodies so we can fill up the spaces and not have to worry about filling lanes, or count on one person."
The current junior class will be ready to take on the leadership roles, including Nathan Parker (IM/Breast stroke), and freestylers Steve Myer, Rob Accettura and Mike Fasanello. The sophomores expected to increase their contributions next year are all freestylers, but Eric Robinson and Laurence Lau also compete in the fly. Brian Torvinen specializes in the sprints.
The Vikings also had a talented group of ninth graders who had moved into scoring positions by the end of the season. The freshman roster consisted of Justin Cohen (free), Jon Cusack (backstroke/free), Dan Gaylord (back/free), John Limyansky (free) and Kevin Loester (free/fly).
The Vikings are expecting a few swimmers among the incoming freshman class next year, boys who swim for the Willows Swim Club in the summer. The current Vikings will be encouraged to join swim teams outside of the high school season in hopes of improving the program.
"It was a great season overall," Harding said of his boys’ squad. "At the end, they really started to work hard, especially the last few weeks of the season. It took a lot of me getting on them, but when they started seeing results, they finally started pushing themselves a lot more."
Harding’s one regret for the boys team is that the numbers were a little down this winter. To help remedy that for the future, the coach is planning on visiting area swim clubs in the summer to talk up the high school program.
SPLASHES: Harding had help coaching both squads from first year assistant Lauren Sirr. A former competitive swimmer herself, Sirr is a teacher at Greenbrook School in South Brunswick … Lui has one more outing as a Viking. He will compete in the NJSIAA Championships the weekend of March 3-4.