After completing a historic season last year with a record of 8-3, OP Swim looks to achieve even greater accomplishments. Although our team has lost captains Conor Heffernan and Luis Cueva, all of our swimmers have improved immensely over the off-season. Henry Crowther, Charlie Kline, and Paul Knecht will lead the team to greatness through their captainship. Coaches Bradley and Hay have developed numerous goals for our team.
First, they hope that all of the swimmers show improvement. Every swimmer puts in the work during the season, so we hope that this can be shown at meets. Building on the hope for improvement, the coaches want all of their athletes to swim multiple events. This is especially important for non-club swimmers since this is their only time of the year to gain experience in different events. With our captains this year, this goal will certainly be achieved since they have been helping make the lineups for the past 2-3 years.
Last year, our team was fortunate enough to qualify for the state tournament. We entered our first matchup as the 6-seed and beat St. Joseph (Met.), which was the 7-seed. This advanced us to swimming against Seton Hall Prep, who was the 3-seed. Although we lost to this team, we had a great run in the tournament. As we approached this season, Bradley and Hay hope to make it back to the tournament and advance to the next round, at the least.
The top swimmers of our team—Henry Crowther, Charlie Kline, Brice Spreeman, Ronan Hamon, Jonathan Peterson, and Conor Heffernan—qualified for the 2024 Meet of Champions and competed in all three relays. This year, we want to qualify for all the relays again. Additionally, Henry Crowther qualified for 200 freestyle as an individual event. The coaches hope for Crowther to do the same thing, but they also hope that other swimmers can make an individual qualification time.
Before the 2024 Meet of Champions, the entire team swam at the Union County Championships, where we placed 4th behind Westfield, Summit, and Scotch Plains-Fanwood. The week after this meet, however, OP Swim had a massive win over Scotch Plains-Fanwood. This win shows the team that we have potential to beat this team in the Union County Championship. Along with beating Scotch Plains-Fanwood, we hope to beat Summit and Debarton in the regular season to go 9-1.
