Westside has a lot of momentum heading into the Metro Swimming Championship this weekend following Nate Germonprez’s record-breaking performance at the Westside Invite.

The Westside junior broke the state record with a time of 1:36.72 in the 200 freestyle, placing him as the record holder in all eight of the school’s individual records. Germonprez broke the 200-freestyle school record set by Chuck Sharpe in 1977 and the state record held by Jacob Molacek of Creighton Prep.

Westside head coach Doug Krecklow acknowledged that Germonprez’s record-breaking season is a first for Westside’s swim team.

“From that perspective, he’s what you would classify as a generational swimmer. When you have someone that can do all of those different events, he’s just so versatile,” Krecklow said. “To achieve that kind of a swim is just a remarkable effort. He’s in the same category as Chuck Sharpe and Jacob Molacek. He’s just a remarkable swimmer.”

Germonprez currently leads the charts in every individual swimming event in the state. 

Krecklow elaborated on the work ethic of Germonprez that got him to where he is today.

“If you watch him train, everything he does is fast. Even if he’s swimming slow, he’s swimming fast. It’s just his nature, he doesn’t like going slow,” Krecklow said. “He’d rather come in and swim for an hour and fifteen minutes and go hog wild for an hour and 15 minutes and just be done. But he just has that internal drive to just get in the water and go.”

Germonprez attributed a lot of his recent success to his work ethic and the work he puts in the pool during practice.

“It stems from having a good technique and foundation. A huge part of training and swimming is technique. You wanna be consistent in every stroke,” Germonprez said. “You just kind of have to trust that the power and strength will come later. So, getting a good technical base is a good start.”

As a junior, Germonprez still has another year left on the Westside swim team. The University of Texas commit discussed his plans for the 2022-2023 season and his career after he graduates from Westside.

“Continuing to build my technical base. I know that once I go into college, the strength is going to come naturally from lifting more and being a part of the team like that,” Germonprez said. “Continuing to work on technique. Some side goals are just to continue to improve, be fast in practice, and being consistent.”

Germonprez will swim four events at the Metro Championships. The first event is the 200-medley relay, followed by the 200 individual medley, 100 freestyle and the 400-freestyle relay. Coach Krecklow is looking forward to the Metro Swim Meet with a winning attitude and hopes of defeating Creighton Prep for the team title.

“Over the past few years, they haven’t gone full force at the Metro’s. We’ve entered with the idea of taking a shot at it. I think we have a decent shot at trying to win it,” Krecklow said. “I think it’s gonna be a 20 or 25 point meet. Then it just depends on what they’re gonna do. We’re gonna make it an interesting meet, but you never know.”

Westside will swim on Saturday, Feb. 12 at the Metro Conference Swimming Championships at Millard West High School.  The Warriors have aspirations of reclaiming the boys team championship, since their previous capture of the title in 2018. You can watch the entire meet live at Millard West Striv.

Millard West