Flint Hill Opens Swim Season

When the Huskies open their swim season today, it will be only the fourth time the team has taken to the pool all season.

Although the preseason officially started last week, Huskies coach Ellen MacGregor explained her team did not have access to Oak Marr pool, where the team practices, until this week.

The result is that Thursday's meet serves a fundamental purpose: "It's a baseline. It's a true baseline. We can only go up, only get faster," MacGregor said.

Flint Hill will only swim in three meets prior to January, with MacGregor saying the main goal is "to get in shape, get our endurance." The Huskies will re-evaluate where they stand at a Dec. 18 meet at George Mason University that "will tell us where we are within, or how we stack up against state competition," after which the team "start focusing on speed" and prepare for the penultimate meets of the season.

Those end-of-season competitions include the Independent School League championships for the Flint Hill girls—the Huskies finished eighth last year—as well as the Washington Metropolitan Prep School Swim Dive League and Virginia Swimming Independent Schools.

In the build-up to those competitions are a series of dual meets against other prep schools. Last year, the Huskies finished with an 8-6 record in those meets.

"This year, one of the goals is to have a winning season again in the dual meets," MacGregor said.

But MacGregor is realistic about her team's chances, as Flint Hill's 25-person squad will match up against much larger teams throughout the season. She estimates Gonzaga and Georgetown Prep have 60-person teams and said that "we do OK against schools our size, we're competitive. We win some, we lose some."

MacGregor added that "you don't control what the other team has. You only control what you do in the water."

Instead, the second-year head coach is focused on getting the most of each and every swimmer.

"I really don't care about our dual meet win-or-loss record. The kids do. I don't. I'd rather them all have individual success," said MacGregor, who has been in swimming for almost 30 years.

The primary metric of that individual success will be qualification for the state championships held by Virginia Swimming Independent Schools (VSIS) as well as the Eastern Interscholastic Swim & Diving Championship. Both require sufficiently fast times to qualify and, according to MacGregor, Easterns—as the event is more commonly known—"was the fastest high school meet in the country" two years ago, when Flint Hill swimmers last participated. Flint Hill did not travel to Easterns last year due to the region's snowstorms.

MacGregor anticipates that, based on what she's seen so far, four girls will qualify for states and three for Easterns, while six to eight of her boys will qualify.

Leading the way on the girls side is Rachel Swarts, who MacGregor identified as "by far, the top swimmer on the team." Swarts placed second at last year's VSIS meet in the 100-yard backstroke and will be joined in leading Flint Hill by Allison Kennedy and Natalie Brendsel.

For the boys, MacGregor pointed to four top swimmers.

"Rob Ikeda is a good backstroker. He's a good sprinter. Brian DeMocker, he has the endurance to do well in the longer freestyle and he has a good butterfly. Jonah Chang is a sophomore, and he is my fastest sprinter and butterflyer by far. And then, Nick Waters, he's another member of the relay team that just missed the school record last year," MacGregor said.

At this point in the season, MacGregor added that "[t]here's still potential for others, but I just don't know yet."

One obstacle for the Huskies is a lack of depth.

"We need strength in breaststroke for the girls. For the boys, we need more depth or strength in the butterfly, the distance races," MacGregor said.

But MacGregor also said her young team—Flint Hill only has two seniors, one of whom is new to swimming—will rally around a strong positive attitude.

"It's a close-knit team. They're a good bunch of kids. They like each other. They're here to have fun. They're here to do well," MacGregor stressed.

That attitude will be put to the test by a demanding practice and travel schedule. Flint Hill alternates between practices from 6:15-7:15 a.m. and 3:30-4:30 p.m.

When asked her biggest challenge, MacGregor replied that, in addition to having to personally man the wheel of the Huskies' bus to crawl through rush hour and reach meets on time, it is "[k]ids staying healthy when going to morning practice and not burning the candle at both ends. That is the biggest challenge, is keeping kids healthy in the winter, in the cold and flu season."

MacGregor said she puts a lot of faith in her team to learn to make the right choices in their own lives and has turned to inspiration from late John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach of UCLA.

Atop the Hukies website is Wooden's question: "If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

Wooden preached the value of getting the most out of oneself and, beyond a shared Indianan heritage, MacGregor sees a significant connection to her sport: "One of the beauties, I think, of swimming as a sport, especially an individual sport, is that you can have great success without ever winning a race. And that is doing your personal best. You control your destiny."

The Huskies begin to shape this season's destiny when they face Gonzaga and Stone Ridge this afternoon at Stone Ridge. Thursday's meet at the Bethesda school will start at 4:30 p.m.