Princeton Packet Athlete of the Week

PHS’ Hand enjoying another good year

By: Bob Nuse
   Peter Hand knew early on that swimming was a sport he would enjoy.
   "When I was pretty young, both my brother and sister were doing it, so I got into it that way," said Hand, who is now a sophomore at Princeton High. "I didn’t have to do it. It was my choice to do it and I did pretty well right from the start."
   Since he started swimming eight years ago, Hand has continued to do well. He’s turned swimming into a year-round sport for himself and has developed into one of the most versatile swimmers in the Colonial Valley Conference.
   "I’ve seen it over the span of a few years that he has really grown to love the sport," said Peter’s father and PHS coach, Greg Hand. "He’s a great student of all the strokes and for his age, he’s a real technician. The other side of it is that he is a great competitor in the water and he realizes that once the race is over, you have to keep it in perspective. I love his attitude."
   Peter’s attitude has helped translate into success in the pool. Last year he helped the Little Tigers to an undefeated regular season that included championships in the CVC Valley Division and Mercer County meet, Princeton also won the Central Jersey B Division championship and advanced to the state finals.
   This year, the Little Tigers are off to a similar start. A 102-68 win over Lawrence on Tuesday improved their record to 4-0. Last Saturday night at Rider, Princeton topped Notre Dame, 116-54, as Hand won the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke, as well as being a part of a two winning relays.
   Peter Hand is the Princeton Packet Athlete of the Week.
   "The Notre Dame meet was a real focused meet for us," Greg Hand said. "The kids were excited about getting started again. We had not had a meet in a while and now we have a stretch of meets coming up that we want to be sharp for. So Saturday’s meet with Notre Dame, after a long period without a meet, was really going to show us where we are at this point in time."
   It showed Princeton that it’s almost where it was a year ago. The team lost a couple of key performers in Levan Beridze and Rob Foreman, but the nucleus of the team is back in the fold.
   "Losing Levan and Rob hurts, so we know it’s going to be closer this year," Peter said. "I know we’re going to have a lot of close meets later on in the season. Everyone has to do their own part. Levan was a big part of the team last year, but everyone knows that if we do what we can do as individuals and take care of that stuff, the team stuff will take care of itself."
   Over the last two years, the team stuff has almost always taken care of itself. Princeton has gone 19-1 in its last 20 meets, with the only loss coming to Cherry Hill East in last year’s state final.
   Peter Hand has played a role in that success, swimming wherever the team needs him to swim. He’s been that way since he started swimming, even when he reached the higher levels. And he knows that preparing for the meets is just as important as swimming in the meets.
   "I started making J.O.s probably when I was 11 or so," said Peter, who swims for the X-Cel club team. "I’ve always liked the meets, that’s the best part of swimming. But it’s the training that gets you to the meets, so it all ties together.
   "We have three meets over the next two weeks that are going to be very important for us. We have West Windsor South, Hopewell Valley and Nottingham, and those are going to be three of the biggest meets for us during the season."
   So far this year, the Princeton swim team has been able to continue the roll it started last year. And nothing that has happened this year would indicate that roll is about to stop.
   "This team has a great attitude and is fun to work with," Greg Hand said. "The kids really like each other and feed off of each other in training. I think the training environment that we have is as good as you can get."
   And so are the results.