ANDERSON, Ind. — It has been a long time since the Anderson High School boys’ swim team last dipped its toes into competitive waters.
Nearly a month, in fact.
That will change when the team travels to Hamilton Southeastern for sectional preliminaries this Thursday. What will not change is the team’s high expectations following an undefeated regular season and second consecutive North Central Conference title.
“We set the goals before the season that we wanted to finish undefeated in dual meets and win the conference championship,” Indians coach Jeff Eddy said. “We achieved both of those, so now we’re going to start looking at some individual goals and hope we can get some people into the state meet.”
Eddy believes that standout seniors Kyle Johnson and Jake Fugate have a favorable chance to advance to state in each of their two events. There is also a strong possibility that at least one of the relay teams, featuring Johnson, Fugate, Hamilton Smith and Jason Cramer, could advance as well.
Team-wise, Anderson hopes to finish in the top three of the tough sectional, which boasts perennial swim powerhouses HSE and Fishers along with other strong programs such as Yorktown, Oak Hill and Pendleton Heights. The Indians finished second in last year’s meet.
“I think we’ve got a lot of work to do if we are going to keep our second-place finish from last year,” Eddy said. “But I don’t think we’re too far off from Fishers for second place. We lost a lot of good seniors from last year’s team, so to finish in the top 3 of this group this year would still be a great accomplishment.”
Johnson, who swims the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly, is no stranger to either personal or team success. He has been a part of four conference titles and two undefeated seasons and has advanced to the state meet each year of his high school career.
“It’s been so exciting to have been a part of that,” he said. “We’ve worked so hard to achieve goals that we’ve set for ourselves and we still have pretty high hopes. To think that Jake could be standing right next me at the state meet, well that would be something else.”
Johnson has set conservative time goals for the preliminaries which would allow him to advance while still “leaving something in the tank” for the final round. He is shooting for a time around 1:41 in the 200 free and a mark of 50.93 in the 100 fly.
“Those aren’t times that will move mountains, but it will give me room to improve as I move on,” he said.
Fugate has been to the state meet as a member of relay teams, but is looking to advance in an individual event for the first time.
“Right now I’m working the hardest I have all season,” Fugate said. “I’ve wanted to go to state all four year and this is my last chance to do it. At the same time we want those relay teams to go on as well.”
Eddy and Johnson agreed that the 200 and 400 free relay teams are the strongest and have the best chance of moving on. Johnson estimated that a time of 3:14 in the 400 would move the team on and be “easily” achievable based on the group’s performance so far this season. However, he also said that no one on the team is taking anything for granted.
“Right now all those seedings and placements are nothing but ink and paper,” he said. “When you get in the water anything can happen and we have to be ready to swim at our highest level.”
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