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Sports

Wolverines Take to the Pool in Metro Finals

With three races Saturday and a year-round training regimen, junior Nick Lechner is raising the bar for Watkins Mill swimmers, coach says.

In a grueling Saturday at the Germantown Indoor Swim Center, Watkins Mill swimmers launched off the board in three events at the Washington Metropolitan Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Championships, culminating the Wolverines’ season against the very best swimmers from across the region. 

Times in the previous week’s county championships qualified Watkins Mill swimmers in the boys’ 200-yard freestyle relay, 100-yard freestyle and the 200-yard individual medley.

In two of the events, Watkins Mill missed the finals by finishing outside the top 20 during the morning preliminaries. The 200 freestyle relay team—Patrick King, Michael Parra, Eric Valdez and Nick Lechner—came in 34th by posting a 1:41.90. In the preliminary 100 freestyle, Lechner finished 25th with a time of 50.77 seconds.

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But in the 200 individual medley, Lechner’s time of 2:02.63 minutes edged him into the finals, in 20th place. In the evening finals, Lechner jumped up five spots to 15th by shaving more than a second off his earlier time (2:01.38). Georgetown Prep's Jonathan Ekstrom won the event with a time of 1:49.77.

Lechner is widely regarded as Watkins Mill's top swimmer, and swims year-round to stay ahead at the pool. A fan of the "Michael Phelp's diet," Lechner says he eats around 6,000 calories a day to maintain the energy he needs for his 24-hour- a-week training schedule.

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Lechner credited much of his success to his year-round practice schedule with private coach Bill Shechtman.

"I feel like we need to get more people into year-round swimming," Lechner said. "If I could convince a couple people to go do at least one or two year-round practices a week, then it would definitely help our team a lot."

Coach Bryan Clark agreed that swimming year-round is key to any swimmer's career, and he added that Lechner, the "silent" leader, sets a prime illustration of what some extra dedication can do.

"He just goes in, works hard. He swims everyday in the morning. He swims like three hours a day, or something like that. And, everyone knows Nick on the team. They know he's the best swimmer. They know the time he puts into it. So, it's just more of that he leads by example."

Watkins Mill's girls finished 6-2 on the season and the boys 4-4 -- strong strides as the program looks to return to the kind of performances typical to its heyday in the 1990's. Lechner's commitment to swimming has been crucial to that dynamic, he said.

"One of the best I've ever been around. You normally don't get a swimmer like him at Watkins Mill," Clark said. "Just to have him in the program sets the tone for the rest of the swimmers… to see what it takes to be successful."

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