TJ boys’ swimming finishes season strong with high hopes for state.
After a sucessful season, some Spartans are headed off to the State Meet. photo by Kevin Fleming
Sophomore Tim Mahoney is competing in State this following week in the 200 Free Relay with his partner Ivan Komodore, and is hoping to take the number one spot.
On April 27, the Thomas Jefferson Swim Team welcomed the Denver West Cowboys with open arms, and they were ready for competition. The first event that took place was a Medley Relay, which TJ dominated. Senior Ryan Diaz, Junior Seth Perry, and Mahoney took first in the relay. The second event held was the 200-Meter Freestyle Swim, and freshman competitor Frank Hupperts took first with an outstanding time of 2:22.06.
With winning in the air, Perry jumped on the starting block and got a fantastic start to the 100-meter fly and swam his way to first with a time of 1:00.28. Mahoney followed in Perry’s footsteps and finished with an exceptional time of 57.31. “The West meet was great. West has a good combined team and it is awesome that they got a few more swimmers from Denver North High School. They were all great sportsmen and it was an overall high intensity meet,” said Head Coach Cindy Allen.
Along with other wins, TJ took first in the majority of the events and won, beating Denver West High School 112 – 43.
After a confidence boost from the Denver West meet, TJ hosted a meet against Arvada West. “We have been looking forward to this match all year. TJ’s old swim coach, Coach Cook, is now the coach for Arvada West, so we wanted to show them we meant business,” said Allen. Even though Sophomore Daniel Smith, Perry, Mahoney, and Diaz took first in multiple events, Arvada West proved to be superior to TJ on that day, and won 98 – 87. “Arvada picked up some really great swimmers and we held them strong until the last meet which was a 400-meter relay that we lost by a small margin,” said Allen.
The boy’s next meet is May 8, for the City Meet at Manual at 4:15pm, and May 9th at 12:00pm. This meet could lock in some state qualifiers that takes place Saturday, May 16, 2009 at Mountain View High School.
