It’s time for the winter sports of Niles North to take the scene in the 2017-18 school year, and the boys swim team has already been working very hard in their season, which started on Nov. 20. With last year’s seniors gone, the team has a tough season to follow up, but they seem to be working extremely hard in order to put forth their best performances.

“This year’s squad is a lot smaller than last year’s, so every swimmer counts,” Seth Orlove, varsity coach, said to the team before the first practice. This year’s swim team consists of a junior varsity (JV), and varsity squad, compared to last year in which there were three squads, novice, junior varsity, and varsity. The smaller team gives the swimmers an opportunity to build a stronger team bond, and definitely frees up space in the pool. “We lost a lot of people but we’re still gonna try to keep up North’s image in the CSL (Central Suburban League),” Steven Nguyen, JV swimmer said. The varsity team’s size has reduced from twelve swimmers, to ten swimmers, which is very small compared to teams from schools such as New Trier and Glenbrook South, and last year’s novice team swimmers have all been promoted to JV, with a majority of last year’s JV team having either graduated, or simply left the swim team.

“They’re not the fastest, but they’re pretty speedy,” Jared Brown, varsity team captain, replied when asked about how he feels about this year’s team. Both the coaches, and swimmers, have high expectations for this season, the swimmers especially have been setting personal goals over the past weeks in order to gauge where they are, and how hard they have to work during the season. Much is expected from the team this year, not only by the team and it’s coaches, but by the school too. Students look forward to the team’s winter pep assembly performance, and sectional meet, but the team also hopes more people will show up to other meets in the season.

The team is hoping for raised attendance at home meets since attendance in previous years has been very minimal, apart from the North v. West and sectional meets. “More people at the meets would definitely be a plus, kind of because the pressure from the crowd would make me want to swim faster,” Robert Callen, varsity swimmer, said about his feelings toward bigger crowds.

Come out and support the boys for their first home meet on Dec. 15 against New Trier!