Tony Dennis is picking up right where he left off.
At last season’s Class 4A state championships, the Edmonds-Woodway swimmer finished a surprising third in the 500-yard freestyle, his highest placement ever in three trips to the King County Aquatic Center.
“That was way better than I thought I was going to get,” Dennis said. “The atmosphere was really intense and I think that helped me to swim pretty good.”
Two years ago, Dennis advanced to the consolation finals of the 500 freestyle, so his goal heading into his junior season was simply to make it into the finals.
Dennis, a senior at King’s High School who competes for Edmonds-Woodway because the Knights don’t have a swim team, also won the consolation finals of the 200 freestyle to finish ninth overall.
His performance in that event also was unexpected.
“I was actually pretty surprised about my finish in the 200,” Dennis said.
This year Dennis is undefeated in the 200 and 500 freestyles and he already has made the state cut three times in the latter.
“I think coming in third (in the 500 freestyle) was a big breakthrough for him,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Matt Delaney said. “The first two years (at state) he’s an underclassmen. He was a little apprehensive where he was. He did what he was capable of doing. I think that’s just going to balloon coming into this year. We’ll have pretty strong expectations for what he’s capable of doing at the state meet this year.”
Dennis described his early-season performances as good but he expects to kick it up a notch in the coming weeks.
“I haven’t had the best races so far but hopefully soon I’ll have some breakout swims and be able to drop a lot of time,” Dennis said.
Dennis, who also competes for Cascade Swim Club, expects to squeeze in as much swimming as possible during the holiday break.
“The level of training has probably increased a little bit,” he said. “All of the guys on my club team … are older and we’re all going faster all the time. So our training has increased based on how well we’re doing and we’ve been doing pretty well.”
The goals Dennis has set for himself this season have more to do with times rather than placements. The returning competition in the 500 freestyle is fierce.
“This year I would like to get better than third but the guys who are swimming at state are really, really fast, so I’d have to drop quite a bit of time before state,” Dennis said. “I think that the goal is probably just to do better and get the all-American automatic cut.”
As for the 200 freestyle, Dennis also hopes to move up.
“Making it to the finals would be great,” he said. “I’m not looking for anything special there. I just want to make it to the finals.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
