The McLean High Swim and Dive teams traveled to Washington-Liberty High School on Jan. 29 to participate in the Liberty District Championships. On top of a plethora of other individual and team achievements, the Highlanders took home first place in boys swim and boys dive.

For McLean’s divers, the key to their success was staying in a rhythm.

“We practice for a couple of hours and we run through all of our dives…so that we can get it down,” star sophomore Nick Wanzer said. “We make sure we actually have it before we go to compete, and then we warm up for about two hours once we get to the pool, just to get ready.”

The preparation was more than enough for Wanzer, who took home first place with 464 points across his eleven dives. Divers were not the only Highlanders to add their names to the McLean history books, as the boys swim team placed first in districts, while the girls team placed second and broke the standing McLean records in the 200 meter medley and freestyle relays.

“[What impressed me the most was] the dedication, determination and spirit of every single athlete both on an individual level and as teammates,” assistant swim coach Anna Desmarais said. “Every single swimmer and diver worked incredibly hard to practice and prepare for districts and gave 110% at the meet.”

The long hours of practice helped in the end, as McLean was able to edge out its competition on the way to a near-sweep of the events.

“It was really exciting,” sophomore Catherine Hughes said. “I was just thinking ‘win this’ and [I was trying to] swim as fast as I can and do it for the team.

Hughes had an outstanding performance at districts, winning two individual races and being a part of both record-setting relays. Though they ended the day with success, McLean’s many swimmers and divers had to deal with adversity throughout their respective events.

“A lot of our guys saw that there were other kids that were really good at diving, and it made them feel like they weren’t good enough to get points for our team,” Wanzer said. “In their mind they were going into the competition way more nervous than they were supposed to be. They had to push through that to be able to place as well as they did and eventually lead us to winning.”

McLean faced challenges outside of the pool, too, dealing with the scheduling problems that have plagued nearly every winter sport as a result of an uptick in COVID-19 cases.

“Leading up to districts, the team faced challenges due to COVID restrictions and pauses that led to event changes and shuffling of relays,” Desmarais said. “[But] everyone worked together to move forward and do their best in any event they were entered in.”

After their accomplishments at districts, all of McLean’s aquatic athletes have their sights set on placing highly at regionals.

“We have a great group of swimmers and divers headed to Regionals this weekend,” Desmarais said. “The swimmers know which events they will be competing in and are focusing on technique for those events during practice.”

McLean’s swimmers and divers are tuning up their skills and familiarizing themselves with the Oak Marr RECenter—where regionals will be held—ahead of the competition.

“We went to the pool where [regionals] is gonna be held at to go practice there and get used to the environment,” Wanzer said. “We’re all going to be a lot more confident, since we know what to expect.”