Moses Lake swimmers stay attached to the podium

MOSES LAKE - There's something admirable about athletes competing individually.

The outcome is put squarely on how they perform and there's no teammates to bail them out if they make a mistake.

Whether it's swimming, track and field or golf, in most instances it is only the athlete against his or her competition. A group of Moses Lake boys swimmers dominated the field recently without the backing of any team, traveling to meets and competing unattached.

Brothers Luke and Ian MacDougall, Eric Kemper and Noah Heaps have enjoyed tremendous success so far this season.

"They have been extremely self motivated to take their training to the next level," Joe MacDougall said. "The boys are actively swimming five to six times a week for an hour and half each day plus dry land training."

At five previous swim meets so far this season, Luke has been the high point winner in all five and last summer he competed at the 2013 Western Zone Age Group Championships in Roseville, Calif.

"It was a really great experience surrounded by people supporting you," Luke said.

Luke placed 12th in the 400-meter freestyle and 50-meter freestyle at the zone championships and his goal is to make it back to that same event this season. A solid performance at the zone championships and Luke would advance to the national championship meet.

Only a few steps away from his ultimate goal, the Olympics.

Luke's younger brother Ian is hot on the heels of the elder MacDougall, advancing to the Northwest Age Group Regionals this past March.

"It made me feel fast," Ian said.

Luke and Ian push themselves to improve and even build their own workouts. The pair may swim between three and four miles in about 90 minutes. When practice is complete, Luke and Ian will have swam between 4,000 and 5,000 yards.

"I like that you can race against your own time," Ian said.

With his slender frame and prolific swimming, Luke has drawn comparisons to Olympian Michael Phelps in the past, but he says he's a bigger fan of the other top American swimmer. That is Olympic medalist and reality television star Ryan Lochte. The MacDougalls are also fans of USA swimmer Nathan Adrian.

Kemper, who has been described as having one of the fastest kicks in the pool, also swims unattached with the MacDougalls.

At the Octoberfest swim meet in Ellensburg recently Kemper accumulated 124 points and dropped 12 seconds in the 100-meter breast stroke, an event that had challenged him previously.

At the Turkey Trot swim meet in Cheney, Kemper placed in the top 10 overall and shaved 27 seconds off his time in the 500-meter freestyle.

The last piece of this aquatic quadruplet, Noah Heaps, began swimming competitively when he was 9 years old and has continued to flourish in the pool. At the Moses Lake Sprint Triathlon, Heaps placed second in his age division and was fifth out of the water overall.

Heaps was able to join Luke at the zone championship in Roseville, Calif. in the 200-meter back stroke. Heaps' next goal is to begin training for the 2014 Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim. The event is a 1.5 mile open water swim from Alcatraz to the San Francisco Bay.

With these four constantly improving and rewriting the record books, Moses Lake will continue to be known for its swim scene.