On Friday, Dec. 1, Palatine High School’s Boys Swim & Dive team won their first swim meet on both levels against the Rolling Meadows Mustangs.
Being the first meet of the season, swimmers and divers were at very different levels from it being their first meet ever to their last first meet of their high school career.
“I thought that since it was our first meet we did very good. Nobody missed their events,” jv coach John Giuliano said. “Everyone swam really hard and did what they needed to do to try and get the best times that they could.”
In fact, almost every swimmer achieved a new personal record at the meet.
“I want to shout out Brodie [Piecuch] for getting best times in all four of his races today,” said Varsity head coach Kathryn Mroz-Binder.
Despite all these wins, there are still things that the team could do to improve throughout the season.
“I would say we need to work on some of the finer details of racing like starts, turns, and overall fitness,” said Mroz.
With a new season, came new team captains. Junior, Tyler Schiavone and senior, Kris Sculz who aim to make the team the best they can be.
“We need to keep going hard at practice. It all starts with practice,” Schiavone said. “Whatever we do at practice we do at meets. Like Katie [Mroz] likes to say, ‘you’ve gotta swim fast to swim fast.'”
This year, the team hired Ian Richardson to coach the new “Frosh-Soph” team which is made up of swimmers who are newer to the sport.
“I think they did really well today. A lot of them going in, knowing that they’ve never swam before,” Richardson said. “There’s been a lot of improvement from the beginning of the season and I’m looking for more improvement.”
In addition to the many swimmers, the diving team, led by coach Curtis Bendell also competed on Friday.
“They did okay today. They made a couple of mistakes, but they’re learning from them and that’s the most important part,” said Bendell. “The goal, obviously, is to coach them to get them to perform the best during the championship season.”
With five more all-level meets and many more JV and Varsity meets, the team has plenty of opportunities to improve.
