Yu, seniors perfect in county history
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Midway through the Mercer County Championships on Saturday, Colburn Yu heard that Notre Dame was winning the boys side by six points.
”That’s when I was like, guys we have to step it up,” said the Princeton High School senior. “Then in the 100 breaststroke, when we swept it with me, Alex Bank and Chris Chiang, I knew we’d win counties again.”
The Little Tigers pulled away from Notre Dame over the final half of the meet to win the county crown for the fourth straight year.
”In the last three years, when these guys were quite a big factor, we’ve been much stronger in the last portion of the meet than we were a few years ago,” said PHS head coach Greg Hand. “We used to rely on the first part of the meet.”
The Little Tigers’ 277 points to Notre Dame’s 239 kept the PHS seniors perfect in their career.
”We’ve been together since freshman year,” Yu said. “I feel like the Class of 2012, they were also an amazing year, and they’d been together for a really long time. It’s pretty cool to do that for four years.”
Will Stange was named the Most Valuable Swimmer of the meet. The PHS senior won the 100 backstroke in a meet record 56.85 seconds after he had already set another record, 2:07.42, to win the 200 individual medley as he led a sweep with Yu second and Avery Soong third.
”My individual swims, I thought, were pretty good,” Yu said. “My 2 IM, I was seeded third after prelims. Our goal was to get 1-2-3 with Will winning and me and Avery getting second and third. I always rely on my breaststroke in the second half to get ahead. After the backstroke, I realized I was pretty far behind. I knew I needed to pick it up. I managed to get into second place.”
Peter Kalibat won the 200 free and the 400 free. Purdy was second in the 50 free and 100 free races. Gabriel Bar-Cohen was fifth in the 200 IM. Alex Petruso was sixth in the 100 back.
”I thought the best thing our kids did today was just swim with great intensity across the board,” Hand said. “All the guys beat their seed times, some pretty substantially. It followed a good day of racing the day before.”
Stange, Yu, Soong and Matt Purdy won the opening 200 medley relay, and the Little Tigers finished with a season-best time for second in the 400 free relay. PHS was second in the 200 free relay as well.
”We do really well in the relays,” Yu said. “We dropped time. Our 200 medley relay, Will stepped it up, I gave it my best shot, Avery swam well and Matt Purdy brought it home. It was a great way to start the meet and get everyone else pumped.
”For the last 400 free relay, even though Notre Dame beat us, I thought it was a great race. When I got on the block, I got numb because of all the pressure and the adrenaline. I wanted to catch up, but I just couldn’t.”
No one could catch the Little Tigers either, though there were plenty of strong swims. West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s Aly Sayed won the 100 butterfly in a new meet record 56.21 seconds. He was second in the 100 back and Adam Druckman was fifth.
Richard Deng was sixth in the 200 IM. Kurt Von Autenried was third in the 100 fly. Michael Zhong took fifth in the 400 free. David Yin was fourth in the 100 breast. The Pirates were fourth in the 400 free relay. The Pirates placed third overall.WW-P North was third in the 200 free relay. Brian Chan was sixth in the 100 breast. The Knights were seventh in the team standings.
The state tournament is next on the schedule, and the Little Tigers want to make a push to send their seniors out on top.
”Our goal for this year is to win the state championship,” Yu said. “Before that, our goal was just to win every dual meet and win counties and breeze through all of those meets. Obviously you can’t just do that. We had to build a solid foundation and build our teamwork, which I think our team has. We’re always there to support each other. We know sometimes we have good races and sometimes bad races, but we move on and look at the bright side of things.
”Coach Hand is always there to inspire us with all his quotes and all his stories. He’s been coaching for many decades, so we all trust him and trust our training, the high school swimmers and club swimmers.”
Yu, who will swim at Johns Hopkins University next year, is among the seniors that have swum plenty of these big meets in their careers. That comes in handy as they head into the states.
”Personally as a senior, I have a lot of experience with these higher competition meets,” Yu said. “I feel like it’s a good way for us seniors to demonstrate to the underclassmen what it’s like to do your best when it’s needed.
”The underclassmen, they look up to the seniors since we know what we’re doing. They rely on us. Our emotions effect how they think. If we don’t give 100 percent, they won’t give 100 percent.”
Hand has seen senior groups like this before, but the depth and talent in this class is something he’s enjoying coaching one final year before they head to college. Winning their fourth county title in a row gave them momentum for states.
”It had such great feel because this is similar to the team that swam two years ago,” Hand said. “We had a big and talented senior class who really gelled as a unit and worked together to try to win counties. They have the mindset now to really sacrifice — you have to sacrifice over the almost three weeks involved in a state tournament run.
”They’ve been influential every step of the way. This was their year to swim a really excellent county meet and they did.”