The Oratory Swim team started their season with a competitive meet against Delbarton. After previously beating this team at Preps last year, we came into the meet knowing it was going to be close. The first half of the meet ended with the score being tied. However, unfortunately, Oratory was not able to hang on. With the last 4 events of the meet not going our way, the team lost 75-95 in a hard-fought battle. Although it was tough losing to this team, we had to figure out what went wrong and bounce back.
The team had 2 days to recover from the loss and then faced up against New Providence. This meet appeared to be an easy win due to beating them by over 20 points last year. However, after realizing that OP Swim was missing some crucial swimmers, we saw it would be closer than anticipated. Nonetheless, our team managed to figure it out and brought back the win, with a score of 86-83. Congratulations to Will Kulikowski for getting Swimmer of the Meet. These two meets give OP Swim a record of 1-1. The team is now preparing to race Elizabeth and Morristown Beard, with the hope to finish 2025 as 3-1.
After defeating New Providence, the Oratory Swim Team faced up against Elizabeth. The team put together some great races, by starting off by placing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the 200-yard freestyle to finishing with 1st and 2nd place in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Although all of our swimmers did well, the coaches wanted to highlight Brody Henderson as Swimmer of the Meet. Brody started his meet with a personal record in the 100 freestyle, then he helped his 200-yeard free relay capture 3rd place. His final individual event was one that he had not done before, a 100-yard backstroke. Brody adapted to this new event well. Oratory managed to close the meet with a score of 113-57, giving us a record of 3-1.
With this victory, the swim team traveled to Morristown Beard. The 2 wins in a row gave OP Swim the momentum needed to take down this team. Like the Elizabeth meet, the team produced some dominant performances. For example, Jonathan Peterson, Daniel Cashin, and Brody Henderson placed top-3 in the 50 freestyle and Cathal Hislop, Shalen Sternberg, and Ronan Hamon placed top-3 in the 100 breaststroke. The Swimmer of the Meet was Dylan Guilcapi who swam the 100-yard butterfly and the 200-yard IM, although with 2 relays. This win puts OP Swim in a great 3-win streak position where we aim to take down Governor Livingston on January 3rd.
