Helps Nassau capture Division II title
By: Bob Nuse
While many swimmers look at the summer season as a time to kick their training into gear, Andrew Philhower prefers to use it as a chance to kick back and relax.
"It’s a pretty laid-back thing for me," Philhower said of the Princeton Area Swimming and Diving Association season. "I don’t practice much. It’s more for fun. I enjoying being with the team and swimming in the meets, but I don’t do a lot of training for it."
Even with little training, Philhower still finds a way to be successful. At last week’s PASDA championship meet, the Princeton resident won three events while swimming for the Nassau Swim Club, helping the team to a first-place finish in Division II.
Philhower won the Boys’ 17-and-under 50-yard breaststroke, 50-yard butterfly and 100-yard individual medley, helping Nassau cruise to the Division II championship. Nassau finished with 2,951 points, easily outdistancing second-place Lenape, which finished with 1,589 points.
"This summer I did not do any club swimming for my X-Cel team," said Philhower, who will be a senior at The Hun School this fall. "I’ve been doing some water polo and some other things to stay in decent condition. As long as the races are sprints, I’m OK. If they were longer, I might be in trouble."
A three-year varsity performer on the Hun swim team, Philhower plans to add another sport to his repertoire this school year as the Raiders add a water polo team.
"They’re starting a team at Hun and that should be a lot of fun," Philhower said. "I’ve been trying to stay in shape for that and it will go right into the swim team for the winter. Swimming is a big part of water polo and you have to be able to move in the water.
"I’ve played for a few years for the club team at Lawrenceville. This is the first year we’ll have it at Hun. It should be a lot of fun."
And fun is what Philhower looks to get out of the summer season with the team at Nassau. He knows he won’t be swimming any record times, but being part of a team that has swimmers as young as 6 years old makes it different than the usual club season.
"I like being part of this kind of team," Philhower said. "You see the younger swimmers around and you get to know them. Then you see them compete and you cheer them on. It’s a nice experience."
Once the summer is over, Philhower will be back in the training mode. He not only will be training with X-Cel to get ready for the high school season, but will be working on his water polo as well.
"I’ll be pretty busy with both of those going at once," Philhower said. "But I like to keep busy, so it should not be a problem. I’m really looking forward to the water polo. And the swimming season should be a good one for us. We’ve got some good swimmers coming back to our team."
For the summer, he was part of a team that dominated Division II at the PASDA final.
"Summer swimming is different than regular club swimming or high school swimming," Philhower said. "You get a good mix of ages of the kids. And you want to do well, but it is a lot more laid back. I felt like I could do well as long as the races weren’t too long. It would have been tough to do a 200 or a 500 this time of year, but I was fine with the 50s."
Which fit in just right with being the time of year to kick back and relax.