Moses Lake boys swim team is a bonafide contender in the CBBN

MOSES LAKE — The lanes at the Tony St. Onge Pool of Dreams looked like a military parade ground, regimented distances between participants pushing through the water with drill team precision. When they were done, the guy in the wheelchair on the deck got on the microphone, calling out instruction for the next training exercise.

Moses Lake coach Tony St. Onge couldn’t help but smile at the no-nonsense precision his boys swimming team worked Thursday afternoon.

“This could be one of the best teams in school history. We have that potential,” he said. “The guys from last year worked hard in the off-season and have improved. We have a new freshman swimmer that had the third fastest time in the United States (14-year-old, USA Swimming) last year in the 50-yard freestyle named Zack Washburn.”

Washburn can swim all the strokes, so he’ll swim wherever needed on a team that finished just 33 points behind NCWAA 4A District 6 champion Wenatchee, then pushed hard into the top 10 at the 2016-17 Washington 4A Swimming and Diving Championships a year ago.

“We have nine guys on this team with the potential to win races,” St. Onge said. “With eight individual events, we can swim two, possibly three in each event, there’s a real good scoring potential. I mean, we have guys that can be swimming No. 1 on any other team in the district, it’s that good. ”

The Chiefs return three-year state qualifier Ander Molitor, who qualified last season in both the 50 and the 100-yard freestyles and swam on the 200-yard relay. The Chiefs senior, who was a part of the school record-setting 400 freestyle relay as a freshman in 2015, is ready for one last ride.

“It’s going to be a good year. With Zack Washburn, who’s a really fast freshman, coming in it’s going to a lot of fun,” Molitor said.

As he stood there poolside under the school record board, he just looked up and smiled at the 400 relay names from his freshman season when he was the kid on a seasoned relay. Now, he is the senior and the kids are pushing him.

“Being the senior, everybody wants to beat me in the pool,” he said with a smile. “It’s good to have them giving me a run for my money.”

They also return two-time state qualifier Noah Heaps, who was a part of two district-record setting relays last season.

The Chiefs 200-yard freestyle owns the new NCWAA 4A District 6 fast time of 1:29.02. Molitor, Heaps, Ryan Madrishin and Kyle Jorgensen erased the old record of 1:29.51 set in 2015. The medley relay of Jorgensen, Heaps, Eric Kemper and Madrishin posted a time of 1:42.47 to erase a 14-year record time of 1:43.68 set in 2003.

St. Onge hasn’t set the relay lineups yet, but you can expect to see Heaps making his contributions.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun this year and I’m ready for some competition,” said Heaps, who qualified for the Western Zone Senior Championships this past summer swimming for the Manta Rays. “I swam on all three relays last year and I think we’ll qualify all three (for the state meet) this year. Our goal for each relay is to be in the championship swim as a contender for that top spot.”

The 2017-18 Chiefs lineup will also include Garrett Lake (sr.), Eric Kemper (soph.), Cole Lindberg (fr.), Dylan Bond (soph.), Jordan Pack (jr.) and Brett Jorgensen (fresh.), as well as others.

“We have nine guys that could all be in district championship finals if we work it right,” St, Onge said. “If we can get six or seven of those guys to swim state qualifying times, that would give is a pretty strong state team.”

The goal this season is to meet the state qualifying standard times during the season and not wait to qualify at the district meet, which frees up a different training methodology for the state championships.

“Our fundamental goal with this type of a team is to get as many qualified for state prior to districts, so we can train right on through and taper one time (for state),” St. Onge said. “That’s where we’re at. These guys are bonafide.”

The Chiefs host the Big Nine Pentathlon on Nov. 30 at Tony St. Onge Pool of Dreams to open the season.