Beachwood Swimmers Make Strides, Fall in Opener

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Walsh Jesuit earned road victories over Beachwood on Tuesday in both boys and girls swimming.

The Warriors’ boys, who finished among the top 25 teams in the state last season, defeated the Bison, 139-36, and the Walsh Jesuit girls, 27th in the state last season, won 132-46.

“It is always hard swimming your first meet outnumbered 2-to-1, but I am proud of the racing of my swimmers,” Beachwood coach Brad Burget said. “They continue to become more competitive and their training started to show in the first meet.”

Burget was especially pleased with Beachwood’s freestyle events and relays. Those squads continue to develop and improve.

“Our freestyle events/relays were competitive with Walsh, showing good promise for the end of the season performances,” Burget said.

The Bison’s intense preseason regimen paid dividends against Walsh Jesuit and Burget said the team isn’t ready to back off that hard work just yet.

“This team has never completed five doubles of training per week, which I asked them to do for the first month and we are not resting for any teams until January,” he said. “In December, we are cutting back a few mornings, but still cranking out some very hard training.”

Beachwood’s top performers on Tuesday included freshman Bagatur Askaryan on the boys’ side and senior Lindsey Guth, a 2012 district qualifier, and Aliyah Patterson, a member of the Bison’s 200-yard medley and freestyle relay teams that competed at districts, for the girls.

“This meet I saw a lot of good swims by all to be happy about,” Burget said. “The team did exactly as I asked them to do, race. I asked for their best.”

The Bison return to action on Tuesday when they host Chagrin Falls at 5:30 p.m.