With seven first place event finishes, the WHHS Junior High Swim Team became the city-wide champion on Jan. 12. For the first time in school history, the boys came in first place with a score of 443, blowing out the second place team, Kings, by a margin of 80 points.

“I was really surprised to win the championship because we had a lot of issues throughout the season, but when only 3 teams showed up to the championship, I was not expecting to lose,” Matthew Dillon, ‘23, said.

The girls also put on an incredible performance with a third place finish and a score of 251.

“It was quite the accomplishment after all the ups and downs throughout the season” Lila Flynn-Tombragel, ‘24, said.

The two teams combined for a total of 814 points, good enough to take home the combined victory.

Swimming can sometimes be looked at as an individual sport because most of the time the participant races by themselves; however, in this win, every part of the team needed to be there for each other.

“I think part of the reason why we won was because we had our whole team at the end of the lanes cheering for each other while all the other teams didn’t cheer as hard,” Dillon said.

The winning continued in the junior high with the diving team. Out of 27 participants, WHHS had three divers in the top 10: Elleka Boeres (third), ‘23, Brynn Halbeisen (fifth), ‘24 and Milo Shrive (ninth), ‘23.

“I was excited but I was surprised as well. We had very good coaching all year and I expected to do well, but coming in first overall was huge,” Shrive said.