Sibling rivalry benefits Knights
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Brian and Wilson Chan are enjoying their first year swimming together for the West Windsor-Plainsboro North boys team, even if they only admit so reluctantly.
”We swam head to head in practice, and I dropped like two seconds,” said Brian, the Knights senior co-captain. “It’s an interesting thing about family. It adds another level of competition.”
Added Wilson, a freshman: “There’s always something between my brother and I — how we compete for everything. We want to be better than the other. That’s the thing that pushes me to swim faster.”
Both were pushed to solid times to help the Knights edge Hopewell Valley, 88-82, Tuesday to improve to 3-0. Brian was second in the 50 freestyle, while Wilson led a 1-2 finish in the 100 free with Hai Huang, and the Chan brothers were a part of the winning 200 free relay together that gave the Knights enough margin going into the final three events to hold off the Bulldogs. Winning together is one thing they can agree on.
”It’s a pretty cool thing,” Brian said. “It’s nice my senior year. It’s my last year of swimming, why not swim with my brother?”
For the past several years, Wilson has come to watch some of Brian’s meets. Now he’s a part of them.
”It’s actually really exciting,” said Wilson, a member of Tiger Aquatics club team. “It’s surprisingly different from club swimming. Club swimming is more individual. Now that (high school) is based on a point system, everyone is cheering for you, it feels like more of a community.”
Wilson drew plenty of cheers with his big finish to win the 100 free in 59.39. But it wasn’t unanimous.
”What I tell him is he could always do better,” Brian said. “I tell him, you could always drop one more second. I think it’s kind of the older brother thing. If someone else would get a 59 on the free, I’d be telling them it was a great job.”
The brothers aren’t just competitive in the pool.
”It’s pretty much in everything,” Brian said. “Even in video games.”
But in the pool, they are working together for the Knights, who needed good swims from their entire team. The Bulldogs had the winner in eight of 11 events. Jung-Mao Hsieh won the 200 individual medley, and the Chan brothers had a hand in the other two Knight wins.
”What won us the meet today was the depth we had from the kids we had coming in,” said Knights head coach Todd Robinson, whose girls also beat Hopewell, 106-64, to remain unbeaten. “It’s really something that we haven’t necessarily enjoyed in the past with the boys team. It’s nice to have some freshmen in who have some experience.
”We had some older boys step up and swim well too. Alex Af Ursin swam a nice leg in the 200 free relay, Ben Chang was second in the breast, Jung-Mao Hsieh won the IM and was second in the backstroke.”
Brian Chan suspected that his brother could help the Knights this year. Brian was a club swimmer himself until two years ago, while Wilson began swimming club by the time he was in fifth grade, but hadn’t been a part of anything like Tuesday’s meet.
”That was probably the most intense meet I’ve ever had,” Wilson said. “It got the adrenaline rushing and everyone was cheering for each other. It’s the first time I was a part of a real team.”
Brian has been around high school swimming for four years, yet the win still ranks up there for him.
”It was definitely one of the most competitive meets I’ve ever had,” he said. “In order to win a meet, it’s not a single swimmer winning all the events for you. It’s really the entire team that makes the difference.
”Compared to other teams I’ve been on, I’m happy. Not only do we have the depth, we also have the passion. I think that makes a big difference.”
It will have to as the Knights look for a first-ever win over sister school WW-P South on Tuesday. The Pirates beat Hopewell by a comparable 90-80 final.
”I think we know a lot of what we’re good at and what we can improve in,” Brian said. “I think it sets us up nicely for the meet next week against South. I think this year we have a good shot at South because of the Hopewell meet.”
Robinson also sees a lot of potential in this year’s Knights team. The first-year head coach is happy with the versatility he has at his hands.
”We have a number of kids who can swim different events,” Robinson said. “Not only freestyle events, but swim other strokes for us. It gives us a lot of flexibility. It allows us to do other things and match up with teams as best we can based on what we know.
”We didn’t know a whole lot about this Hopewell team except that it was going to be a tough meet. They have some senior swimmers that are good. We knew it would be a very tight meet. We just tried to match things up as best we could. It worked out. The kids swam great. I’m really proud of the team.”