In last weekend’s MCPS Division 1 Championship, the Whitman swim and dive team had a strong performance. The undefeated boys finished in second place out of the six teams just behind Churchill, and the girls finished in fourth place.

The boys scored a total of 463.5 points, just 17 points behind first. Junior Alec Cooper placed first in both the 50 free with a time of 21.47 seconds and the 100 free at 46.96 seconds; junior Jason Bretz finished second in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 50.03 seconds, setting a new team record for the Vikes. Both juniors were also part of the 200 medley relay team that placed first, along with senior Michael Paulos and freshman Kris Lawson. However, the Vikings were hurt by a disqualification of senior Frank Schweitzer in the 200-yard individual medley. He finished in third place but was disqualified, costing the team 16 points. 

The girls had a respectable showing in the difficult divisional championship, scoring 308 points and finishing in fourth place. One of the bright spots for the Vikes was the strong performance of senior Hannah Donner, who won the 1-meter diving competition in dominating fashion, scoring more than 25 points above the second-place finisher in a 226.55 point effort. To add to that, two sophomores performed well. Victoria Svensson placed second in the 100-yard backstroke with a personal best time of 57.53 seconds, and Giulia Baroldi placed third in the 100-yard freestyle at 52.70 seconds.

The team will next compete this week at the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming & Diving Championships (METROS) at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center. Boys and girls diving takes place at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively; swimming will take place on Saturday with preliminaries at 8:15 a.m. and finals at 5:30 p.m..