SHORELINE — Taking over a boys swimming program that has already established a winning tradition left first-year Shorewood coach Scott Kelley in a pickle.
While he knew the Thunderbirds had the passion and personnel to challenge for a third straight Western Conference 4A South Division title, Kelley didn’t want his swimmers to become complacent.
“A lot of times when you come in and are expected to win, the focus isn’t there in practice,” Kelley said. “My policy is not to smile for the first couple months. I don’t know if I’ve succeeded at that, but that’s my goal.”
Kelley is finding it difficult to keep a straight face these days because the T-birds are giving their new coach plenty to be happy about.
Shorewood graduated a trio of state qualifiers, but return two state meet participants in juniors Garrett Gentling and Michael Korpi. A standout freshman class is also helping the T-birds make up for the costly departures.
“We probably have four or five freshmen who have a lot of swimming experience and are coming into (the season) in pretty good shape,” Kelley said. “We’re going to have some guys swimming JV who on other teams would be swimming varsity. We have a lot of depth.”
One of just two sophomores to make the finals, Gentling placed eighth in the 100-yard backstroke at last year’s Class 4A state championships.
He eclipsed the state standard in the event during Shorewood’s first meet of the season Dec. 4 against Newport with a winning time of 57.40 seconds.
“I was a little bit surprised by that, but I knew he could do it,” Kelly said. “It’s still about three or four seconds off what he’s hoping to go.”
Gentling swam in a pair of relays at state last season and also qualified in the 200 individual medley.
“He’s a pretty mild mannered guy, but he knows what he wants to accomplish and definitely strives for that in practice,” Kelley said.
Shorewood lost three-fourths of its 200 medley relay team that took fifth at state, but the new foursome of Gentling, junior Steve McCall and seniors Chris MacGeorge and Charlie Maier came within a second of reaching the state standard against Newport.
“I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to get three relays at state,” Kelley said.
For now, the focus remains on the dual meet season and securing another league championship. Shorewood’s second straight Wesco South title didn’t come easy, as Jackson, Kamiak and Meadowdale all pushed the T-birds to their limit.
A third consecutive title figures to be even more of a struggle, with Jackson bringing back most of its key contributors from last year and emerging as the early favorite.
“It’s going to be tough going up against Jackson and Kamiak, but I think we can handle it,” Maier said. “They lost a lot of seniors and we lost some key seniors. It’s going to be a toss-up but I think we’ve got the edge.”
Maier attributes Shorewood’s competitive advantage to team chemistry that extends beyond the pool.
“The thing that sets our team apart from everybody else is that we’re like a family,” he said. “We hang out together, we eat together. We’re just a whole bunch of friends swimming.”
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