When junior swimmer Nate Ross finished his 200 freestyle event in the first meet of the season against Woodland Hills and looked up at the scoreboard to view his time, he couldn’t believe what he saw. He had easily met the qualifying time necessary to advance to the WPIAL Class 3A championships and broken his own best time from last year.
“When I saw my time, I couldn’t believe it because it was such a big drop in my time from my last year,” says Nate. “I didn’t think the time was real, so I asked my coach and he said it was right. I was really pumped up!”
Nate isn’t the only one on the Foxes boys team to be swimming better than ever. There are so much talent and depth that everyone, from Coach Dan Taylor down to the freshmen having their first experience with high school swimming, is confident they are on their way to capturing their first section title in 21 years.
Coach Dan Taylor says, “Nate has emerged as one of the top swimmers in the WPIAL in the 200 free and he has his sights set on qualifying in the 500 free, 100 free, and 100 back. He brings his “A” game every day and gives 100% on every set. He is just swimming at a very high level right now and I am excited for his chances to compete at WPIALs. The boys also have a great chance to break the school record in the 400 free relay. They are less than :03 off the record. There is good depth in most of our events and that will give the boys a legitimate chance to win a section title.”
Then there is Zachary Zornan-Ferguson, the 6’3” freshman phenom who already broke a pool record in the 50 freestyle and made the cuts for the WPIAL Class 3A championships in the100 freestyle and the 500 freestyle. And there might be a few more to come. Amazingly Zach set the pool record and qualified for the championships while rehabbing his broken wrist for six weeks. But his natural talent and the buzz about him had preceded him in joining the high school team. The last time he looked, USA Swimming had ranked him fifth in the country among his age group.
“I’d like to get some personal best times this season, win WPIALs, and make it to states,” says Zach, who, despite his success, doesn’t like to talk too much about his accomplishments. “Swimming on a high school team has been a different experience than swimming for a club team. I think being with other people every day who are supportive of you has really helped me to swim better.”
Coach Taylor adds, “Zach has set high expectations for himself and loves to compete. I am excited to see what he can do down the stretch.”
It’s not only Nate and Zach who are doing well. Junior Holden Smith and sophomores Emmanuel Drappatz and Aadil Pattada have really improved their times from last year, as have a number of other swimmers. That, and having a team that is positive and committed, has Coach Taylor expecting a lot out of his boys team. There is a lot of potential still to be tapped, but not a lot of time to do it considering their season was cut three works short on the front end due to the COVID pause in high school sports. Coach Taylor is having more practices and many swimmers say they are much harder than in the past. That’s mainly due to the higher level of talent, which has increased the intensity of practices. Most of the swimmers realize that’s a good thing because the WPIAL has made qualifying times for the championships much faster than in prior years. The change was necessitated due to the pandemic and indoor capacity limits. The location of the championships has not been announced yet, but when it is, the size of the venue will determine the number of heats they can run and how many swimmers can participate.
In the meantime, the boys all appear to be very confident that a gold medal lies ahead for the team and many of its members. They also are rooting for their female counterparts who have a number of early qualifiers and are in contention for another section title.