The AHS swim and dive team will conclude its regular season on Jan. 20, when the team will take on the T.C. Williams Titans in its senior night meet. Members aim to use this final meet to prepare for districts, which will be held on Jan. 27 and 28.

“Do or do not. There is no try,” Head Coach Neal Jarvis said, quoting Master Yoda of Star Wars. “We’re entering into a vision quest.”

Although the boys team will likely earn a victory, the Titans have a handful of girls who could pose a serious challenge to the girls team in the individual events.

“It will be interesting to see how we stack up against those teams,” sophomore Trevor Barry said.

After starting the year 2-0, the Atoms fell to West Springfield and W.T. Woodson on consecutive nights to drop to 2-2. The boys swim and dive team therefore felt it necessary to bounce back with a victory. The oys came out strong in their following meet, beating West Potomac by 39 points with a score of 177-138 on Jan. 6.

“We brought our A-game tonight,” sophomore Noah Wolfenstein said.

“I must say the team had a quality meet,” junior Joe Rolen said. “I cut three seconds in my 200-yard freestyle, so I was pretty boosted.”

“I dropped a ton of time in my 200-yard IM,” junior Dylan Gore said.

The strong performance of the dive team once again proved to be a major factor in the boys victory over the Wolverines.

“The dive team helped the swim team win by sweeping first through fourth place,” junior Paul Helfgott said. “We also provided them with encouragement to try and be as good as we were that night.”

“We carry the team,” freshman diver Kyle Goettlicher said.

The girls team lost by a score of 101-211, causing them to ell to fall to a record of 0-5. Despite the loss, the girls showed tremendous improvement after having lost to the Wolverines by almost 200 points last year.

“The girls team did way better against West Potomac this year than we did last year, even though we lost,” junior Tessa Iglesias said. “We tried our hardest and had a lot of fun.”

“We improved tremendously since the last time we faced them,” sophomore Melanie Bennett said.

The girls dive team looked much-improved as well.

“We’ve improved a lot since the beginning of the year, but we still need to improve more,” senior dive captain Jazmine Bounds said.

Many AHS supporters attended the meet, which created a spirited environment for the athletes.

“It was definitely our best meet this season as far as team spirit,” senior Adam Wattenberger said. “Also, a lot of people had best times.”

The team hopes to maintain this momentum heading into districts.

“Districts really captures the essence of what swim team is all about,” junior Alex Lash said.

Last week’s meet against Robert E. Lee ended too late to be covered in this print issue of The A-Blast, but official scores and results can be found online.