The Niles North boys swimming team is attempting to kick off the new season with a first win on their first meet against Niles West on December 12 at the Niles West High School swimming pool.
The team set some high goals for themselves, especially the coaches.
The swimming program is starting off fresh with a new and young team, losing a lot of their state qualified swimmers in the past couple of years due to graduation.
“We are looking forward to our season this year and I believe that we can get the conference champ title back from Highland Park,” Eddy Kang, senior captain, said.
Kang depicted five freshmen who qualified to swim for varsity that could lead them to success, not only towards the end of the season, but for the rest of their four coming years at Niles North, namely Anthony Zagorov, Michael Zagorov, Jared Brown, Jeremiah Limson and Szymone Michalski.
“This year’s junior varsity team is stronger all around compared to last year. I know we’re going against Niles West and I would imagine that it would be a very close meet,” Paul Torres, junior varsity team coach, said.
Last year’s Niles North swimming team didn’t close the season with much success. They had only one varsity swimmer, Dimitar Kirilov, alumni, who qualified for state for breaststroke. But head coach Seth Orlove is getting ready to get passed this because of the young swimmers who just entered the program.
“I’m just really into setting the season up as a whole right now,” Orlove said.
“But of course, our first meet is a big meet for us, but I think what’s more important is that we get people used to getting them into the routines, understanding how our team operates, you know, just kind of setting up some small goals so that way, we’ll look at the bigger picture in terms of our development over time,” Orlove added.
Orlove mentions the beneficial factors of the team for the future for starting off a new, younger team.
“We’re a younger varsity squad at this point and I want everybody to have fun, I want everybody to kind of understand and respect the process, and I think some of the long term goals are obviously to get back to being a conference championship caliber team. That’s the first step,” Orlove said. “And then putting some of the guys in the state meet. Placing at the state meet is always a goal.”
If you want to support the team and cheer them on into state, don’t hesitate to attend any meets. If you have any questions or interests about the team or their schedule, click here.
Go Vikings!
