The 2018 swim team posing for a group photo after a win against Swampscott. Photo by Carlos Aragon Aldana.
With the new season starting for the Malden High School swim team, all players within the team are anticipating the upcoming season and are striving to make this season better than the previous seasons.
Senior captain Joanne Ho mentions that the team goals for the season are to “get more swimmers to qualify for states and sectionals” as well as to just enjoy the season and have fun. Senior captain Sebastian Romani states that his goals for the season is to uphold their previous year records especially with the new season, adding on to that he hopes that the team will “maintain the same or more athleticism as last year.”
Ho claims that although the team is gaining new members with different talents, they are also lacking “versatility.” To combat this, the captains have been experimenting with new members as well as returning members, placing them in events that they are not that accustomed to.
Although the team is strong as a whole, there are still obstacles that they need to get over. Considering that the MHS swim team does not have a diving team, there is already a disadvantage for the team before the meets even start, since other swim teams that have divers can use points earned at diving competitions in their swim meet. Despite this, Ho explains that the team “[does not] let the fact that [they are] losing before a meet begins to hinder our performances in the water.”
Ho is looking forward to the Medford meet, considering that “Medford is [their] rival and it is always a fun meet.” Romani is looking forward to the Danvers meet since “last year [they] lost due to the technicality.” Senior captain Kevin Ochoa mentions that he is also excited for the Danvers meet since it is a home meet this year. He feels that the team has a chance to “get them back for the loss they handed [the team] last year.” Ochoa describes the Danvers meet last year as “the most exciting meet of the regular season.”
Romani includes that although the team has lost two important seniors last year, Pete Jinapin and Dylan Ha, the team is striving this season to make new memories, along with the seniors attempting to break school records. The team also has many new members that the captains gave shout-outs to, who are Tony Giech, Chloe Akombi, and Abby Tang, as they have already been competing and training with the Malden Crocs, the YMCA swim team. The captains said that the trio already became important members of the team, “fitting right in” and they are all “extremely talented.”
Both Ho and Romani state that the team is really tight-knitted and are really comfortable with one another. The team has already had two games, and they have won both. On December 11, the team had a game against Salem ending the meet with a win. Malden won almost every event, David Lombardi, Tony Giech, Kevin Ochoa, Haoxi Wang, Chloe Akombi, Kevin Sathapornchaisit, Ryan Vasili, Sebastian Romani
With the two successes in mind, the team strives to make this season count.
