On Saturday, December 10, Kent boys varsity swimming and diving lost to Brunswick school 77-101 in the first meet of their 12-meet season.

Kent came into the race knowing that they were facing a “terrific team with a lot of great athletes,” according to head coach Kevin Saxton. Brunswick also has swimmers who compete year round. Brunswick dominated the first half of the meet with a strong 200 IM relay, and fast swimmers in the 200 IM, 200 free, and 50 free.

Brunswick didn’t have any divers competing on Saturday, but senior Doug Pfeifer had a great day, scoring 180.95 points over 6 dives. Placing second with 111.50 points was senior Michael Lim, also for Kent.

Brunswick continued to dominate after the diving, and in the 500 free event two of their swimmers broke the existing pool record. Junior, Thacher Scannell from Brunswick now holds the 500 free pool record at Kent with a time of 4:49.28. Senior Mitea Uenishi had an impressive 100 yard back, placing in 1st, over 6 seconds ahead of the second place finisher.

Although Kent didn’t come away with the win, Coach Saxton said that “we swam fast, and a lot of personal best times were achieved.”  

Kent is optimistic on the upcoming season, and they are “excited to see how we can come together through the season, and see how we can place in Founders and New England’s after our 3rd place finish last year,” according to junior Cooper LeBlanc. Jack Duggan said that “we have a lot of new talent this year, and I’m excited to see where that takes us.”

For Coach Saxton, “The goals are to win as many meets as we can, to push each other and challenge each other as individuals to meet not only the team goals but also set personal best times across the board and to have fun doing it.” Kent faces Hopkins away the first Saturday after break on January 7th.