Shorewood, Brown Deer/USM begin boys swim season in fun Nicolet Sprints

It's a long season and things need to be kept fun, and the Shorewood and Brown Deer/University School boys swim teams took advantage of an opportunity to enjoy themselves at the Nicolet Sprint Invitational on Saturday.

The meet includes eight- and 10-man relay teams, lots of 50-yard races and only a handful of races over 100 yards in length. In short, it's meant to be a good time.

And that's what the two teams had on Saturday. The Greyhounds, behind Jay Tomasiewicz's victories in the 100- and 200-yard individual medleys took fourth in the 14-team event and the rebuilding Falcons claimed 10th as the boys swimming season gets fully under way.

Sprints help conditioning

"The sprint meet is a fun way to start the season with atypical events and extra relay participants," Shorewood coach Rob McCabe said. "That all adds up for some flavor and fun. Racing the short events also helps with the level of conditioning the boys are in."

"It was a good meet for us," Brown Deer/USM co-coach Bob Van Lieshout said. "We had our hats handed to us in a (Woodland) dual meet by New Berlin earlier in the week, so we were able to make some adjustments and it paid off."

Shorewood lost high state place-winning swimmers Andrew Eder and Kasmir Bohannon to graduation.

The Greyhounds still return state meet veterans in seniors Tomasiewicz and Henry Sanders, juniors Philip Clausen and Derek Lock and sophomore Kirill Korolev off a team that finished sixth in the state Division 2 meet last winter.

In the sprint invite, the Greyhounds tied for fourth with 181 points as Middleton won the 14-school event with 438. Tomasiewicz won the 100 individual medley in 55.85 seconds and the 100 IM in 2:01.46.

"He was tremendous winning the 100 IM by nearly four seconds and the 200 IM by almost seven seconds.," McCabe said of Tomasiewicz.

Other top five individual finishes included Korolev third in the 200 free (1:52.77) and fourth in the 200 IM (2:09.3), Lock fifth in the 50 backstroke (28.1) and Sanders fourth in the 50 breaststroke (30.47).

The best of the big group relays for Shorewood was a third by the 10-man 500 free relay team of sophomore Andrew Clokey, Korolev, sophomore Suhith Bayana, senior Kevin Weisling, senior Gabriel Rono, freshman Joe Stephenson, sophomore Charlie Hawks, Lock, Sanders and Tomasiewicz (4:12.27).

McCabe was pleased with the effort.

"We had seven different guys score in their individual swims contributing to the team's overall points," he said. "… This is great way for the boys to experience some outside competition as we look forward to our upcoming meets."

Falcons have few

For the thinner-than-usual Falcons squad, which has only 14 athletes out this winter, they will build around returning state meet veterans junior Billy Wong (breaststroke) and senior Stephen Grambow (free relays).

Others Van Lieshout hopes will contribute include senior Matt Myszewski, freshman Josh Thompson, junior Zach Farrel and sophomore Horst Burmeister.

"Things are going to be a little tight for us," Van Lieshout said. "We can't have anyone get sick or hurt but already times are better than they were last year. It's going to be a challenge as a coach to keep the guys healthy, but we feel good so far."

The Falcons lost five state meet veterans to graduation last spring.

Top finishes for Brown Deer/USM at the sprint invite include Wong seventh in the 200 free (1:56.03) and third in the 50 breaststroke (30.23) and sophomore Bert Balyzonian fifth (30.93).

Another note of encouragement for the Falcons was that the 10-man 500 free relay team was seventh in a time that was 15 seconds faster than it was at this meet last season.

"The guys are melding," Van Lieshout said.

Both Shorewood and Brown Deer/USM took part in the Woodland Conference Relays on Wednesday.