Winter Sports Playoff Preview
Kellen Pierce
2/11/2024
Sports Journalism
Swim/Dive Winter Sports Playoff Preview
SEATTLE - Dive into the thrilling depths of anticipation as O'Dea's Swim/Dive team rallies together to make waves in the upcoming winter sports playoffs. We caught up with varsity swimmers Nick Behrens and Colin Jones to discuss how they and the team are preparing for the playoffs.
It was a great season for all swimmers on the O’Dea Swim/Dive team as they all qualified for metros. Fifteen swimmers qualified for districts, and seven qualified for state.
This has far been the most swimmers qualified for metros, districts, and state that the swim team has had in the past couple of years. Stats like that just show how dominant they are in the pool.
Swimmers like Jack Skarda, Maks Karman, and Prentice Sanders have all impacted the swim team with their performances, but the swimmers that stood out were senior Colin Jones and junior Nick Behrens.
Colin Jones, who made the varsity team for the first time, showed out his first season.
Despite it being his first time on the varsity team, that did not stop him from commanding his lane and outswimming all the other competitors in his way.
During the season, he put up some very good times which saw him qualify for the metro competition alongside all his other teammates. He impressed and was able to qualify for the district tournament. This is very impressive for the first-year varsity senior.
Colin has his head up and looks to qualify for state this weekend in the district tournament.
Colin said, “I’m going to go out there and give it my all.”
In the other lanes, junior Nick Behrens is ready to battle it out in districts and has had his best season yet.
His freshman and sophomore seasons did see him qualify for metros and districts but not for state. This season is different for him, though.
He has been putting in practice outside of O’Dea practices and looks to qualify for state for the first time. Nick is only one second off of qualifying for state in the 50 free, and with all the extra work he is putting in, he will surely qualify without a doubt.
Even if Nick does not come home with a medal at state, he will use this momentum for his senior season.
Nick stated, “I feel like for next year I'll definitely just work on improving on my 50 and the 100 and just really hone in on that.”
Nick is eager to get back to work after the season wraps up.
All the swimmers that have qualified for state and districts have been putting in the extra work by going to pools either by themselves or with each other, even if they are not official practices. This just shows how ready and hungry these boys are to win 1st place in their respective races.
As the qualified swimmers get ready for their races to get them to state, Nick and Colin’s work ethic just comes to show how much of an asset they are to the O’Dea Swim/Dive team.