Westonka swim team celebrates season

The White Hawks boys swim team celebrated a great season at their annual awards banquet on March 17 at the Medina Entertainment Center.

Coaches Ben Hanson and Izzy Kalb spoke about each swimmer individually and recognized their best swims of the season.

The top two swimmers for the 2023-2024 season were senior captain Bryce Helms and Sophomore Sean Dolder. Byrce finished 1st this season with an individual point total of 153 points. Bryce culminated his high school swim career at the MSHSL State tournament finishing in 12th place in the 50 free and 10th place in the 100-yard free with a time of 48:39, breaking the Westonka school record. Sean Dolder finished the season in 2nd place with a total of 80 individual points. Sean swims the most yardage for the team by swimming the 200 free, 500 free, 200 free relay, and 400 relay at all meets. Sean’s best swim was at the section finals, swimming the 500 free with a personal best time of 5:20:99.

Wyatt Helms finished in 3rd place for the team with 47 total individual points. Wyatt culminated his season with best swims at the section tournament swimming the 200 free finishing in 11th place and following in his brothers’ footsteps, the 100 free finishing in 8th place.

Eren Alemdar and Connor Shaw came in with 28 and 19.5 individual points, respectively. Alemdar swam his best race at the section tournament, the 100 fly. Shaw also swam his best race at the section tournament, the 50 free.

Brody Helms finished a great season with 18 individual points. Brody’s best race of the season was the 200 IM breaking into the top 16 for the first time at the section tournament with a personal best time.

Tyler Finley and Niles Senn finished their seasons strong at the section tournament as well, earning 12 points and 10 points respectively. Finley’s best race was the 100 back at the section tournament. Senn’s best race was the 50 free at the section tournament. Both swimmers earned personal best times.

The White Hawks earned collectively as a team the most points they have scored in four years. The team also achieved a Silver Status Academic Award presented at the Section Tournament with a cumulative team GPA of 3.67 with only eight swimmers.

Looking to next season, head coach Ben Hanson stated “next year we hope to continue to grow the team as we have the past couple of years. We look to some new leaders in Eren Alemdar, Sean Dolder, and Wyatt Helms to lead this team in and out of the pool. The team should see a big step forward next year!”