The Westside swim team blew their competition out of the water this past weekend at the Westside Invite. Several records were broken as Westside put up a final boys score of 572 points to Elkhorn’s 485.5 and Kearney’s 378. The girls team put up a final score of 636 to Marian’s 410, and Elkhorn’s 300.

Westside Junior Nate Germonprez had a very impressive day, winning four gold medals and breaking the state record for the 200 freestyle . Germonprez has credited practice as one of the reasons for his recent success.

 “I think it all comes from racing in practice. What goes with practices also goes with meets,” Germonprez said. “I kind of have to race the clock. That’s the goal, I’m racing my best times. A lot of it is muscle memory, a lot of it’s just trusting my training and kind of racing myself and racing the clock.”

Being ranked number one in the country for his class, Germonprez states there’s still more for him to do heading into the closing weeks of the season.

“The hardest part is probably going to have to be putting my head back in the game,” Germonprez said. “Once you have an amazing swim, it’s really tough to back that up and continue to train hard. That’s going to be the challenge and the goal for the next few weeks. Still keep training hard, until the lead up to state where we can get back down.”

Natalie Harris, who took home the gold in the girls 500 freestyle as well as the silver in the 200 Medley Relay, 400 Free Relay and 200 IM. Harris sees the recent success the team has had relating back much to their ‘practice makes perfect’ mindset.

“Just keep doing what we’re doing,” Harris said. “These past few weeks we’ve been pinning out things we’ve needed to work on and I think our coaches will continue to work on those things and we need to work on and make us better. I think we’ll get there and just go all out.”

Westside head coach Doug Krecklow has credited the timing of the Westside Invitational has always been important to swimming in Omaha, due to its close timing with the end of the season. 

“This is a great event,” Krecklow said. “There’s always crazy swims, and all the kids enjoy swimming in this meet, so it’s just a great environment. The kids always enjoy the competition that we provide.” 

Krecklow has credited his veteran swimmers for improving the times of the freshmen and sophomores. These times have improved due to younger swimmers seeing their peers set faster and faster times.

“It’s fun to watch, just race after race after race you’re seeing fast swims and you know when you see that it begins to dovetail on each other. It causes kids to say hey, that was a fast swim. Oh, I’m gonna do a fast swim, then other kids see that and say I can go that fast, And so you start seeing cumulative types of fast swims.” Krecklow said, “I mean, we probably had 75, 80 percent season best times. Just our team and I can’t say what other teams did but there were a lot of best times”

Westside senior Jack Ellison set a meet and pool record in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:39.63. Ellison has been continuously looking at the record ever since he stepped foot in the pool at Westside.

“After training relentlessly for five more years, it’s really a dream come true,” Ellison said. “Entering my freshman year with a 6:01 in the 500 and leaving under the 4:40 boundary is something I think I will look back on for several years. That’s been a goal I’ve been pointing at for a very long time. When I saw 4:39 on that board, I started to cry. Honestly, so many emotions came to my mind, I can’t really pick one.”

Ellison, as well as the rest of the team, is ready for the preparation for the metro and state championship meets. Since the swim season is nearing the end, Ellison hopes his teammates will be at their best, when it’s most needed in the pool.

“We have a really deep program this year, and we’ve all been training so hard,” Ellison said. “Leading up to state, we’re gonna bring our yardage down and we’re gonna be absolutely ready when the time comes. Hopefully take home a state title for Doug and all the other coaches.”

The preparation for the next two meets is extremely important to any team, but the Warriors have a huge chance at a state title. 

“As a team, it’s just kind of fixing the small things,” Germonprez said. “We’re still figuring out who’s gonna go on what spots and what’s gonna maximize the most points.” 

The Warriors will be competing in the Metro Conference Championship meet on Saturday, February 12th at Millard West High School and are hoping to secure the boys team title.