Winter Sports Preview: Sequim High Boys Swimming

Head coach: Linda Moats (15th year)

2014-2015 record: 0-6 in Olympic League

Returners: Wendall Lorenzen (sr.), Christian Goodrich (jr.), Brandon Grow (sr.), Matthew Craig (so.)

Newcomers: Alex Barikoff (fr.), David Calderon (fr.), Brenden Jack (fr.), Alex Mittmann (sr.), Liam Payne (fr.), Baylee Rux (fr.)

Sequim Gazette staff

While boys prep swimming and diving teams are preparing for the winter season, Sequim’s squad is hoping they’ll have one at all.

A month after seeing their home pool, the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center, close, the Wolves now call Port Angeles’ William Shore Memorial Pool home.

“It’s a challenge. It’s an extra hour each day (to Port Angeles and back, for practice), Sequim head coach Linda Moats says. “Not too bad — it could be worse.”

With just 10 athletes — eight swimmers and two divers — turning out, Sequim’s team has just enough participants for a season, Moats says.

“Nationally, boys have lost interest (in swimming),” Moats says.

Sequim needs 10 participants to have an eligible team, Moats says; any fewer and they’d lose funding for a coach and any athletes who want to compete would have to join a nearby district — like Port Angeles — and cover their own travel expenses.

“I’m not sure what’s going happen yet,” Moats said early last week, as the team approached their first meet of the season.

Apart from those issues, the Wolves see four returning athletes in swimmers Wendall Lorenzen, Christian Goodrich and Brandon Grow, and diver Mathew Craig.

Lorenzen, a senior, is the team captain.

“As a freshman, he wasn’t a swimmer,” Moats recalls. “One day it just clicked. He grew into it and got faster. He learned everything as he went along.”

Sequim took 12th place out of 17 teams at last season’s West Central District 2A meet.

Lorenzen and SHS’s 200 free relay team take 11th at districts while Craig took seventh at the district meet last season as a freshman, then went on to place 15th at the state 2A meet.

With fewer than 18 participants, Sequim loses its second coach, diving coach Mark Pincikowski. That means Craig and fellow SHS diver Brendon Jack will practice and compete with Port Angeles this season, Moats says.

The Sequim coach says she has some good raw talent coming in, particularly in incoming freshmen David Calderon — sibling to SHS standouts Noe and Cassandra Calderon — and Liam Payne.

“(Liam) is so coachable: I tell him to change something and he does it,” Moats says.

The Wolves open the season Dec. 3 at Kingston, then have a “home” meet in Port Angeles, against Port Angeles, on Dec. 10.