SHS’s Swim Team State Qualifiers headed to Canton, Ohio Feb. 22 2024, to compete in the OHSAA’s Swimming and Diving State Championships.

Senior swimmer Andrew Indradjaja recalls how the day before the meet went for him and his team.

As far as the meet itself goes during the actual competition, Indradjaja described it as being very energetic.

“The atmosphere was intense because the building is not the biggest nor the smallest so the stands were packed, and there was a lot of cheering for the different teams that attended,” said Indradjaja.

Before the qualifiers even began their high school season, they were preparing for States and other events like it. Coach David Perchinske gives insight about how the students have trained physically and mentally for their upcoming meets in which practices aren’t solely focused on the swimmers strokes and timing.

“If you look at the season as a whole, it is a combination of a macro meso micro cycle [periodization training], so all of it is very scientific and mathematical,” Perchinske said. “We’re tracking everything from volume to times on test-sets. Each practice has goals– it could be heart rate zones that we need to be in and certain pacework that we need to do, and then we’re tracking the number of Strokes per 25.”

But, swimmers have other ways of preparing themselves for important meets such as this one. For example, Senior Grace Chen, who has been a breaststroke swimmer for all four years of high school,has more steps she takes to make sure she will be able to perform her best at her meets.

“I made sure to get a lot of sleep, stay hydrated, eat healthy and focus on my goals at practice,” said Chen. “Something I focused on a lot this year was my mental preparation because I knew physically I had the skills to do it, but I felt like sometimes I would get a little too anxious or I would forget what to do, so I just told myself to be confident and be brave, and I think that worked this year.”

Another swimmer, Junior Andrew Yagour, also likes “meditation to prepare my mind to go and swim fast.”

Others “slap their chest before a race” according to Junior Zachary Han.

Perchinske also has a goal to “temper” his expectations before a meet.

“Rather than telling the kids how I think they should do and being right or wrong when someone is getting emotional, I am trying more to be present as I’m there which is hard for me because I am always looking into the future,” Perchinske said. “I try to be pretty reserved saying ‘I’m gonna see how this goes’ rather than saying ‘Hey I’m going to expect this one thing to happen’.”

Perchinske believed that his qualifiers did what they came to do and accomplished what they needed to at the competition.

“I think they did very well,” said Perchinske. “We are one of if not the best high school swim meets in the country. We flip around back and forth over the years so some years it’s us and some years it’s others. For example, we had two national records set at the Ohio State Meet.”

Others believed they had room for improvement.

Yagour said that his “stroke technique and turns were pretty slow” while Chen and Indradjaja believed that it was because of the break time they received as well as the tapering before the meet.

Indrajaja also provided insight about the previous meet and how that may have affected the qualifiers performance at States.

“The qualifiers didn’t do the greatest since the swimmers had been tapering since the meet prior to this one which was Districts,” Indradjaja said. “District’s was where everybody had the most PR’s and it’s hard to PR the week after.”

Many of the qualified swimmers shared the same enjoyable experience, this experience being “watching swimmers break a couple state records”.

One of the record breaking swimmers is Ivan Prykhodko with his sister Katya Prykodko, Ivan scoring 131 points to take 2nd place behind defending champions Hunting Valley University School, which scored 274 points.

Overall, the qualifiers put in their energy and participated in the OHSAA State Championships for Swimming & Diving.

The times and scores for each swimmer and diver are listed below:
Sophomore Mitch Caldwell scored 236.70 points and placed 6th during Prelims, 367.50 points and placed 5th during Semifinals, and 531.30 points and placed 3rd in Finals in the Boys 1 mtr Diving DIVISION 1.

Senior Dominic Roberto, in the same event, scored 258.10 points and placed 1st during Prelims, 405.25 and placed 1st during Semifinals, and 591.75 points, again in 1st place for finals.

In the Boys 200 Medley Relay, the boys swam a combined time of 1:38.71. Yagour went a 24.20 on the back leg, Jayden went a 28.01 on the breast leg, Zach went a 25.22 on the fly leg, and t George went a 21.28 on the free leg

In the 100 Back, Yagour swam a 52.60 with his splits being 25.16 and a 27.44. In his 100 Fly splits, he swam a 52.42 with his splits being 24.10 and a 28.32.

In the 100 Free, Junior George Libecco swam a 48.22 with his splits being 22.73 and 25.49.

In the 100 Breast, Chen swam a 1:09.20 with her splits being a 33.02 and a 36.18.