If all goes to plan, a swimmer’s season-long training regimen will allow him or her to reach peak performance levels for the most important meet(s) of the season.  For Hill’s swimmers, that meet is the Eastern Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships, an event that dates to 1935 and features more than 40 independent school swimming teams from the East Coast. 

On February 14 and 15, Hill’s swimmers traveled to Franklin and Marshall College’s Kunkle Aquatics Center while the diving team ventured to Germantown Academy to compete in the 2020 Eastern Championship meet.  In recent years, the team’s performance at Easterns has re-written the program record books.  The trend continued this year, as four records fell throughout the two-day event, including one record that had stood since 1982.

Kiersten Dagg ’22 broke a pair of records, besting the previous mark in the 200 Free set a year ago by Brigid Donnelly ’19.  Dagg’s time of 1:55.22 was good for eighth place and came in three-tenths of a second under Donnelly’s previous standard.  During Saturday’s finals round, Dagg broke her own record in the 500 Free by nearly four seconds to earn 11^th place, touching the wall in 5:07.76.

Two more records fell during the Saturday finals, including what is tied for the oldest remaining school record.  In the 100 Back, Michael Wong ’21 lowered his own standard set at the 2019 Eastern Championship, finishing in 7^th place in a time of 50.55.  Wong also placed 10^th in the 100 Fly and swam a leg of the 200 Medley and 200 Free Relays, both of which placed in the top-10.  Co-captain Matthew Kenvin ’20 concluded his three-year Hill Swimming career by breaking the 38-year old record in the 100 Breaststroke.  Kenvin bested the prior record of 59.1 set by Eric Wagner ’82, finishing 11^th overall in a time of 58.59.  Kenvin also placed in the B Final of the 200 IM, finishing 12^th.

As a team, both the Hill boys and girls placed 11^th overall.  The boys accumulated 244.5 points while the girls scored 205 points.  Hill’s combined team score of 449.5 was good for ninth place overall out of 36 scoring teams.