The H-F swim team kicks off their season soon after spending the offseason working towards success. The team is being coached by DELTA teacher John Fitzgerald, who has been coaching the team since 2020, but this season will be his first season as the only coach being without Rick Carlson who retired last year. Fitzgerald has high visions for the team he expects more of his swimmers to qualify for state. “My expectations for the team this season is to build off momentum from last season and hopefully have a similar outcome.” said Fitzgerald “Last season the boys placed 2nd at Sectionals and we had 2 athletes qualify for state.” 

Fitzgerald also expects many swimmers to improve from last year and thinks that senior Jared Rouse, sophomore Cyrus Bethea and junior Max Quirke will qualify for state and even break school records. “I expect Rouse to have a massive breakout season. He is currently in a great spot in the 50 freestyle and has a great chance to qualify for state, perhaps even break the school record,” Fitzgerald said. “My divers Quirke and Bethea are amazing and I’m very excited to see what they are capable of by the end of the season.”

Bethea is eager to perform at his best and get better and better this year. “My expectations for this season are to develop my skills as high as possible to get higher scores to surpass my opponents in competition.”

Bethea is ready to do whatever it takes to improve from his freshman season and advance his skill level. “Since I was only a freshman last year and it was my first year diving I have made large improvements,” said Bethea. “By joining outside clubs and training by myself, I will continue to advance my skill.”

Bethea is also preparing to perform at his absolute best if he makes state this season. ‘ if I make it, which would be quite a challenging achievement to accomplish at this stage I believe I would perform to my best.”

Fitzgerald has high hopes and expectations for this team, not only from the player side but also from the coaching side, especially with the new addition of PE teacher and coach Kelsey Sopron. 

“I am most excited for all the new faces this season. Our staff has added Sopron as head diving coach due to the retirement of coach Rick Carlson. We have also added health teacher Keith Dombkowski as our new JV coach,” said Fitzgerald. “Both coaches are highly qualified and experienced coaches who will make a great addition to the staff. We also graduated a lot of seniors from last season which gives a lot of opportunities for our freshman and sophomore guys to step up and show what they can do.”

The next swimming meet will take place on Dec. 16 at Downers Grove South High School.