The boys swim team took third at the Blue Valley West Invitational on Tuesday Dec. 9.

Sophomore Garrison Fangman, who placed in the top three in two events, said that he did not expect to start off the season with state quality times.

“I think I did really good, individually,” Fangman said. “I was expecting to start out slower at the beginning of the year and increase to my state times at the end of the year.  But I made a new PR (personal record) the first meet of the season so that felt good.”

Although the swim team was competing against last year’s state champions, Fangman said the pressure of the competition didn’t become as overwhelming as he expected.

“I was a little intimidated at first because we were swimming against [Bishop] Miege who won state last year and, of course, they did beat us in all of the events,” Fangman said. “It was nice to get back into a race.”

Despite the tenacious competition, junior Jeremiah Kemper said that he believes the team this year will go further than ever before.

“We’re just going to ride this wave,” Kemper said. “We’re going to take it through league, all the way through state, regionals, and wherever it takes us and get that [win] week in and week out.”

With high hopes of surpassing the other teams this season, Kemper said if their team will provide more effort, there is a chance for a high placement.

“We’ve been to state both years so far that we’ve had a team,” Kemper said. “We’ll be going for three straight which would be a pretty big deal, being a new team. I feel like we can really place in the top 15 or 20 of state, maybe even top 10 if we work hard and we’re defending league champions so it would be pretty special if we could do that and repeat.”

The top finishes at Blue Valley West Invitational were:

200 Medley Relay: seniors Callahan Eckardt and Nick Stack, Fangman, and junior Chase Midyett placed third

200 Medley Relay: Kemper, senior Rylan Davis, juniors Logan Schmidt and Will Dervin placed sixth

200 Free: Eckardt placed first

200 IM: Kemper placed fifth

50 Free: Fangman placed sixth and Midyett placed eighth

Meter Diving: sophomore Mitch Willoughby placed second

100 Butterfly: Fangman placed third

100 Free: Eckardt placed second and Midyett placed sixth

200 Free Relay: Fangman, Midyett, Stack, and Eckardt placed second

200 Free Relay: Davis, junior Brendan Tener, senior Daniel Thomas, and sophomore Spencer Smith placed sixth

100 Breaststroke: Stack placed third

400 Free Relay: Thomas, junior Brennan Teasley, Schmidt, and Kemper placed sixth

400 Free Relay: junior Corey Holt, Dervin, Smith, and Tener placed seventh