Blake's Swim and Dive Team Strives for Success This Season

- (Photo Courtesy of Blake Athletics)

Blake’s Swim and Dive Team is having a stellar year under seventh year head coach Ryan Burnsky.

The team's record has been outstanding with the team racing towards first place or getting sweeps during many of their meets. One factor why this is happening is the team’s depth. “...our depth is phenomenal. We have more swimmers that can swim anything we need and not only swim the events, but swim the event extremely well. That allows swimmers to get creative with their event choices and keep the other teams guessing as to who will swim what. That gives us a big advantage,” Coach Burnsky says. Some of the team members consist of some seniors that have been on the team all four years of their high school such as Miles Brown, Aaron Stanton, and freshman, Johnny Martin and Jonik Surprenant, who are new to the team.

The swim season itself is not long at all, but many members of the team swim and compete at the club level during the off season. This leads to members on the team forming friendships and bonds, which then leads to great team chemistry for Blake when swim and dive season comes around. Coach Burnsky agrees that this a big part of why the team is doing really well.

The team is led by senior captains Miles Brown and Aaron Stanton, who hype up the team before and during matches. “... I lead team cheers or I get people motivated to swim well and I let everyone know where they are going and where they are supposed to be. I just motivate the team to do better and that they can do the best that they can and just believe,” Brown said. Coach Burnsky believes that the team is under “great senior leadership this year.”

While the team is doing well everyone covering every event might not be as comfortable with it. “Our weakness is that even though that we have someone to cover every event, not all are as experienced as the past swimmers,” Stanton says. This one issue isn’t stopping the team from being successful.

The team heads to Metros beginning Wednesday, February 7- Friday, February 10 in Boyds Maryland. The team hopes to move on and advance to regionals and divisionals. “It is my last year, I’m going to miss the team. Hopefully we can win regionals and divisionals and that would be a good way to go out for the team,” Brown said. Come out and support the Bengals Swim Team.