Boys swim and dive maintains perfect season with win over Newton North
January 10, 2016
The boys swim and dive team put up a valiant effort against Newton North Friday, beating them 104- 81. They improved their record to 3-0 on the season.
At the beginning of the meet, there was minimal attendance, with the audience barely filling two rows of the stands. However, despite the lackluster show of support, both teams kept high spirits and warmed up energetically.
Brookline began the meet with a winning trend, with the first five races all being won by the Warriors. Junior Andrey Nosatov came first in the 200 freestyle, Senior Michael Levin won the 200 individual medley and sophomore Reo Shimbori emerged victorious in the 50 freestyle.
The teams then gathered to watch the divers. There were a total of six dives per the three divers of each team. The top score for Brookline was an eight, going to senior captain Nick Schlosman. The top score for Newton North was a seven.
After a brief break, the races started again. This time Brookline found it harder to keep their lead. Out of the last eight races, Brookline won four races, but also lost four.
However, Brookline’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay dominated Newton North, placing both first and second.
According to both head coach Cody Tipton and assistant coach Shinai Hattori, some members of the team qualified for sectionals during the meet.
“I think we had quite a few swimmers who qualified for sectionals and swam their hearts out,” Tipton said. “The effort was there today.”
The typical lineup of swimmers was changed for this meet, according to Hattori.
“We were able to change up the order and the lineup a little bit,” said Hattori. “I think overall we did pretty well, we were able to get a few of the guys to do some other events that they normally don’t swim.”
Hattori said that although Brookline beat Newton during this race, the team should not get distracted from their next few meets.
“Overall we did good, but our next two meets are going to be the toughest ones, and I think we want to focus on those and take this win as a motivation and a step up and try to beat Wellesley and Framingham next week,” Hattori said.
As for what the team can improve on, the two coaches had differing opinions. Tipton said that the team needs to improve on various techniques.
“I just think they need to improve on the little things, like our turns and our starts,” Tipton said.
However, Hattori said that he would like to see more focus from the boys during practices.
“They’re a little distracted at times, there needs to be a lot more focus, not only in the meet but also in practice,” Hattori said.
