Matt Norman isn't ready to include his Potomac School girls' swim team in the conversation of potential title contenders in the Washington Metropolitan Prep School Swim Dive League — not one year after the Panthers placed eight at the highly-competitive league championships. But Potomac's ninth-year coach said his squad will be in contention to top last year's mark and secure its highest finish during his tenure in a league annually dominated by more traditional powers Good Counsel, Holton-Arms and last year's winner, Holy Cross.
Norman envisioned his team’s potential — both for the girls’ and boys’ sides — at the first Saturday practice of the season when he outlined its goals. He wanted the Panthers to break three schools records and qualify more swimmers for states than last season when Potomac had around 20, according to senior captains Natalie Peele and Caroline Kehoe.
“The most complete team that I’ve had in my nine seasons in terms of depth and talent,” Norman said. “We have several key freshmen that are contributing as well as the upperclassmen.”
The team has continued to grow and now has 37 swimmers and divers, the highest number since Norman became the coach. And Stone Ridge 11th-year Coach Bob Walker has pegged the Panthers as perhaps the “biggest surprise” at the Feb. 4 WMPSSDL meet.
“He definitely set the bar higher than the previous year,” Peele said of Norman, “so that kind of indicated this year that we had a stronger team.”
Along with Peele and Kehoe, the Panthers returned junior Hannah Gould and sophomore Megan Sharkey, both Rockville Montgomery Swim Club products who Norman called two of the team’s most versatile swimmers. Gould can swim the 200-yard individual medley, the 500 freestyle and multiple relays. “Pretty much anything we ask her to swim,” Norman said, “she’s capable of doing.” The veteran coach said Sharkey will race in the 50, 100 and 200 free as well as relays.
Hannah’s sister, Katherine (RMSC) and Caroline Otteni (Clark Swim Club) joined Potomac as freshmen this season, further infusing the Panthers with talent.
Aside from the occasional Saturday, Peele said these swimmers don’t come to school practices because they’re training with their club teams. In their absences, Kehoe gained confidence about the team’s future.
“They’re these heavy duty swimmers who went to their club practices all the time,” Kehoe said.
Peele and Norman, meanwhile, realized how strong the team could be after the freshmen’s performance in their first dual meet in late November.
“They really showed how exceptional all of them are,” Peele said. “They just dominated the first meet.”
In the past, Norman said Potomac’s main pitfall at the WMPSSDL championships has been a lack of depth. Not enough swimmers helped the team earn points by qualifying for the final of their specific event.
With this year’s group, Norman expects that to change.
“We’ve had some pretty impressive individual performances,” Norman said “But this year, we’re going to look to leverage our depth to be very competitive in all three relays as well as the individual events.”
The Big number: 168
Points scored by the Robinson boys in their 21-point victory over rival Oakton on Friday night . With the win, the Rams improved to 7-0 and handed the Cougars their first loss of the season.
Swimmer of the week
Molly Benson, Walter Johnson, Fr.
Benson won both of her individual events in Walter Johnson’s 117-54 win over Richard Montgomery on Saturday. She finished about five seconds faster than the runner-up in the 200-yard freestyle and dominated the 500 free, winning by about 23 seconds. Benson was also a part of the Wildcats’ 4x400-yard freestyle relay team that cruised to a first-place finish.
Langley girls look to reclaim the 6A North
Langley Coach Ben Hilt has told his team he’s reserved by nature, but sometimes, he often doesn’t speak up at practice because he can’t. He strains his voice as a second grade teacher at Stenwood Elementary School in Vienna, so by the time he arrives at training, his voice is often hoarse.
Two or three meets into the season — Hilt doesn’t remember which — some of the Saxons swimmers bought their first-year coach a megaphone to help him raise his voice. After all, that’s what they’re used to. Michelle Owens described former coach Ryan Jackson as “out there,” giving loud motivational speeches before meets and wearing “fun” socks during days of competition.
But Jackson retired last year after 12 seasons with the Saxons, leaving an opening for Hilt, who came to Langley after coaching three seasons at Conestoga Valley High School in Pennsylvania. Using a more reserved coaching style, Hilt will look to lead the Saxons girls’ team to a Virginia 6A North region title after finishing runner-up last season.
“We would get top four in many events, but we didn’t have depth like other teams did,” Southern Cal commit Isabella Rongione said. “So we couldn’t score points in the lower areas.”
Hilt said he didn’t hear much about Langley’s postseason performance a year ago, but Rongione and Owens, a Harvard commit, remembered being shocked the Saxons came in second at the Conference 6 championships. In 2015, they won the conference, region and state titles.
“I think we were maybe too confident going in,” Owens said. “I personally, at least, thought we were kind of the sure shots for it.”
At the region meet last February, the Langley boys’ squad won its first 6A North region title. The girls’ side, meanwhile, again finished runner-up before placing fifth at the 6A state championships.
Hilt knew he inherited a talented team this year, but he held off from forming specific goals for the squad entering his first season. He was new to high school swimming in Northern Virginia, so he didn’t know much about the Saxons’ opponents. Looking at past results, he said, could prove misleading because of the yearly turnover due to graduation and incoming freshmen.
His immediate aspirations for the girls’ group, which is 4-3, is to pull out a win against McLean in its final dual meet Saturday. Saxons will then prepare for the conference championships Jan. 26 with the hopes of taking back the title.
Hilt avoided projecting where his team would finish in its postseason events. But Jackson, almost one full year removed from being Langley’s coach, didn’t hesitate when asked how he thought the Saxons would finish.
“If they want to win another state championship, they’re going to have to do it this year,” Jackson said, “because they’re going to lose a lot, and the other teams in the region . . . have a lot of talent.”
