MY TAKE: Wildcat Invitational effort ‘a great way to start off’

Colin Creel has seen plenty in nine seasons as the Wesleyan swim coach. His boys finished fourth last season in Class A-AAAA, and his girls were third from 2004-07. Already in just the second week of this season, he senses his Wolves could be more competitive than ever in Class A, after moving down in classification. Here’s his take on why Wesleyan could compete against the best this season:

1. Young talent: “About three-fourths of our boys and girls are 9th- and 10th- graders, and their success will be directly proportional to how fast they mature. At the Marist dive meet Saturday, sophomores Zach Hernandez and Bobby Chambless already were third and fourth, and Hernandez made the cut for All-American. Freshman Lauren Hall won the girls competition, broke a school [scoring] record and also qualified for All-American.”

2. Early success: “We went to [Whitewater’s] Wildcat Invitational last week, a huge meet with about 20 teams, and our boys got first and our girls fifth. If they had given a combined award, we would have won that, too, which was great for the first meet of the year. That was a great way to start off. Our boys won by almost 100 points.”

3. The spoiler role: “We haven’t won, but we have had influence on which [team] does. In 2005, it came down to the very last race. If our girls won the 400-yard freestyle relay, Westminster would win the meet, but if Marist beat us, they’d win the meet. It came down to [Marist’s] Kathleen Hersey and [Wesleyan’s] Caitlin Reynolds in the last leg, and it was by far the most electric race I’d ever been a part of. We won, which meant Westminster got the title over Marist, who had been favored to win that year.”

4. Improved training: “We’re training smarter than ever. We continue to focus on small aspects of strokes, working more on technique and breaking down kids’ strokes more.”