It might not rank up there with Hoosiers, the popular 1986 movie that documented an Indiana high school basketball team of just seven players winning the state championship.
But parallels can certainly be drawn between that film and the Lawrence High boys swim teams of the past two years.
With just 11 swimmers on last year’s squad, the Cardinals went 7-7, won a first-round state meet and finished fifth in the Mercer County Championships. This year, with only 12 swimmers, Lawrence improved to 8-6; again won a first-round state meet and took fifth in MCTs. In the second-round of the NJSIAA Central B meet, Lawrence lost by just 12 points to a Manasquan team with over double the amount of swimmers.
“That day the other team just had a little more for the win but there was no disappointment in the loss,” coach Ryan Shive said. “We went toe to toe with them. We took every first place but two.
“We had what we considered an amazing season. We always want to do as well or better than the year before. Our goal was to make it back to the second round or better in the postseason. We got to that second round and it was definitely in the realm of possibility we could have won the meet. Our team swam incredibly hard, every single person had their best times. They all improved in that meet and left everything in the water.”
The Cards were a small but hearty band to say the least. And in some ways, that helped fuel them.
“They feed into that,” Shive said. “I know they wish the team could be bigger because it would be easier on the coaches side to put them in better situations to do well, but they enjoy being a small team and being able to go toe to toe with these larger teams. They work hard and we push them pretty hard at times.”
Shive said that while the swimmers approach things as David vs. Goliath, he and coaches Emily Palombo and Hillary Graves-Dix have to present things another way to their athletes.
“For us, everything is about just being better and leveling up,” Shive said. “Don’t worry about your opponent, if you’re close to your best time or getting your best time it doesn’t matter what your opponent did. Everything else is out of your control. You’re really swimming against yourself and using your opponent to do that.
“Hopefully if things go the right way we walk away with the victory. A lot of the team’s focus is cheering for each other and being successful against yourself. Hopefully it translates into wins and other fun things to do.”
Liam Carroll, a third-year senior who helped pick up points in the 100 breast, 200 free, 400 free and several relays, will look back on the past two seasons with pride.
“I think it’s pretty honestly insane for what we had,” Carroll said. “We had one additional person this year than last year and made it to the second-round state meet. Again. It was pretty incredible to me, that we’re going against a team of 29 guys.
“I really think it’s just all dedication to getting better. Yeah it gets really rough at times. But the motivation comes through. When I see myself getting better I feel motivated to go to practice. Everyone does.”
Carroll was one of five seniors on the team along with Nico Guttierez, Bryan Carranza, Anthony Vidal and Fletcher Sisk. Guttierez, Carranza and Vidal were all relative newcomers to the sport but Shive was impressed with how they all progressed and chipped in this season.
Fletcher was the only four-year performer and “has come a long way from his freshman year to senior year. As for Carroll, the coach said “he’s probably one of my hardest workers. He earns every point he gets.”
Kian Khojastepour was the lone junior and served as captain along with Carroll and Sisk.
Sophomores included Carter Edwards, Nick Straka and Josh DeMarco, while freshmen featured Yusuf Kurbetdinov, Ben Edestein, Gavin Hewitt and Aidan Verga.
The underclassmen provided the bulk of the highlights this season.
DeMarco broke his own school record in the breaststroke with a time of 59.8 in a dual meet against West Windsor-Plainsboro South this year.
He originally broke the 21-year-old record as a freshman. He finished third in the breaststroke and 200 IM in the county meet, and qualified for both events in the state meet. Last year he and Straka were part of the Cardinals record-setting 200 medley relay team.
Straka finished in the top six in the backstroke and 100 IM in the MCT and also qualified in states for those events. “He’s good at all strokes,” Shive said.
Verga finished top six in the 200 IM and 100 backstroke in MCTs, while Kurbetdinov was top eight in the 100 fly and 400 free.
“They’re so similar to Josh and Nick who came in really good last year,” Shive said.
The four underclassmen teamed to qualify for the 200 medley at the states, which are Mar. 3.
Although he is graduating, Carroll can’t wait to see what Lawrence does in the coming years with its young talent.
“I definitely see a team that can progress from what we’ve done,” the future Drexel architecture major said. “I see that all the good people on the team now, I believe and have faith in them being able to accomplish the same things that we did the last few years.”
Shive would naturally like to get the numbers up to give him more flexibility in his lineup.
In giving his recruiting pitch to build up the team, Carroll said that, “Swimming as a sport is very tough, and it is very challenging at times. But just like any sport it has a lot of camaraderie and togetherness. You make new friends. It’s one of my favorite physical things to do. I never swam before high school. It just kind of intrigued me, I thought I’d give it a shot and I loved it. ”
Carroll felt the highlight of the season was beating Red Bank in the state meet. He said the captains worked hard at keeping a positive mindset among the rest of the team.
“As physical and as draining as swimming can be, it’s very easy to get unmotivated,” he said. “As captains we had to keep up the motivation in their minds.”
And that mindset is what led to the small team doing some big things this year.
“It’s just all dedication to getting better,” Carroll continued. “Yeah it gets really rough at times. But the motivation kind of continues through as people progress. When I saw myself getting better I just felt more motivated to keep going to practice, things like that. And it rubs off, everyone stays in a positive mood, it tends to go a little smoother through practices.”
Shive said putting together a lineup can be a long and tedious process when Lawrence is going up against a team with more swimmers.
“When we get to state meets I’m spending days putting it together,” he said. “We’ve just gotta pick up the numbers.”
But even with a small lineup, Lawrence stood up to teams, and Shive summed it up succinctly.
“We showed,” he said, “the kind of grit and determination Lawrence has become known for over the past two seasons.”
Much like that little basketball team from Indiana via Hollywood.
Liam Carroll was one of five seniors on the LHS boys’ swim team this year.,
