As the boys swim team tucks additional experience under their caps, new members join and scores improve. From 13 members when the Chuck Fruit Aquatic Center (CFAC) originally opened to about 30 members this season, a mixture of rookies and veterans has prompted a successful year so far.

The boys swim team has gone undefeated this season, beating Route Catholic High School, Sacred Heart Griffin High School and winning the Chatham and O’Fallon Tri-Meet. For the first time, they also won the Normal Invite and defeated O’Fallon 127-56 in a dual meet.

“It was an amazing feeling to beat O’Fallon,” senior breaststroker Spencer Sholl said. “It has always been a goal of (ours). The O’Fallon swim team has some of our closest friends and our worst enemies, so it made the win both fun and rewarding.”

Sholl and junior Mark Schoolman, a swimmer and diver, accredit the team’s success to the variety of experience each member provides. Both freshman and upperclassmen have challenged themselves to either continue their sport at the high school level or try something new.

“It’s incredible to see that more and more people have gained interest in (swimming),” Sholl said. “This doesn’t surprise me though, because we have excellent team chemistry that can make a team of any size seem smaller.”

Senior Chris McCartney was among the newcomers, hoping to keep in shape during the football off-season.

“Swimming has been great,” McCartney said. “I’m in the best shape of my life. I have made new friends through swimming that I probably would’ve never met. Athletically, (swimming) has humbled me because… it takes a lot of hard work, technique and persistence. It’s by far the hardest sport I’ve participated in.”

Unlike McCartney, freshman swimmer Andrew Billhartz entered the high school season with 8 years of experience. Despite previous training on the YMCA Edwardsville Breakers swim team, Billhartz thinks the high school team dynamic is different, ultimately contributing more to the team’s success.

“All together, high school swim is more a team than a group,” he said. “No matter (if you swim) a good race or bad race, we talk to that person and congratulate them because how you swim all depends on your attitude. You swim faster for the betterment of the team and yourself.”

The team continues to push each other at practice to meet an ultimate goal: sending a group to sectionals, and maybe even state. And according to Schoolman, if any team could make it to state, it would be this one.

While the team trains for sectionals, they have to progress through the rest of the regular season. The boys face Springfield Saturday, Jan. 28 at noon at the CFAC. Despite being a challenging rival, they plan to approach Springfield as they do every other meet.

“We are going to go at this with all we’ve got,” Sholl said. “We hope to use this meet to show that we (are) a force to be reckoned with, even when we are still training at 100 percent.”