The Westside boys and girls swim teams are headed to the state tournament today, competing against the top swimmers in Nebraska. The boys are looking for their 24th state championship while the girls look for their 14th, over the two-day event.

The Warriors are following up two second-place finishes at the Metro Conference Championships on Feb. 10-12. The weekend’s highlights included the boys breaking the Westside record for the 200 medley relay with a 1:32.81 along with a first place finish in five other events. The boys 200 medley relay team consisted of Nate Germonprez, Alexander Fitch, Colin Davis and Kaden Guzman and ended with an eighth all-time finish in Nebraska high school swimming history.

Following the successful weekend, Germonprez felt that preparation for the state championships was going to be his most important work of the year.

“For a lot of us, this is our big rest and taper meet, this will be the fastest meet of the season,” Germonprez said. “We’re doing a lot of technique and speed work, and cutting down the yards to physically prepare.”

For the majority of swimmers, an entire season’s preparation leads to this one moment. For Davis, the intensity has increased during the final two weeks of the season.

“Everybody’s a lot more serious now than before other meets,” Davis said. “They’re all doing proper hydration. Everybodys ironing out all the little things.”

Head coach Doug Krecklow talked about the team’s performance at the metro meet and believes that there is still room for impreovement headed into state.

“We needed to finish our recovery time,” Krecklow said. “We were not fully rested for the metro meet. Kids that were still trying to make their time cuts were rested, but most of our kids weren’t. So we were much more ready for this meet than metros. We’re gonna have a lot of big time drops, and that’s what it’s all about. We need to make sure we have big time drops before the state meet.”

Being on a large stage like the Devaney Center in Lincoln, Nebraska can be an overwhelming one for many swimmers. For Germonprez, he feels that these nerves can fuel positive results.

“I think a lot of nerves come with going to big meets and college level pools, but in the long run those nerves are helpful,” Germonprez said. “It gets the energy up in the pool and just makes everybody perform at a higher level.”

The NSAA State Championships start today (Friday, Feb. 25) at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln.  The finals will take place on Saturday, Feb. 26.