Hawks look to repeat as Bay champs

The loss of a talented senior class that helped the Shawano/Bonduel boys swim team to a Bay Conference title would normally dampen expectations for the next season.

Even before the 2015-16 season officially started, however, this year’s Hawks were already planning to repeat as best of the Bay.

“The first day of practice, I hadn’t even started talking about goals, and I had heard them talk amongst themselves about how they want to repeat as conference champs and stuff,” Shawano/Bonduel boys swim head coach Jeff Easter said. “They are feeding themselves in their drive, which I like.”

Griffin Rades, a member of the state-qualifying 200-yard medley relay team as a sophomore, said he learned a lot from departed seniors Zach Soper, Rolando Colon and Jake Klister about the keys to their success.

“They taught me that I have to work as hard as I can in practice to try to get there next year,” Rades said.

The Hawks, according to Easter, understand the competition level in the conference and how difficult it will be to achieve all of their goals.

Easter said he wants his swimmers to focus specifically on their technique, then make minor adjustments throughout the year.

“I told them that my goal for them is to focus on themselves,” Easter said. “(It) is to not worry about what the next guy is doing in terms of times, where they placed at the first meet, but to look at themselves in terms of what they have to do to improve as a swimmer in their technique and in their speed, make those changes and that effort, and watch that time come down.

“If every single swimmer on the team takes that approach, all their times come down as a team, and they’ll see success.”

The coach expects seniors Cayman Kunschke and Kyle Easter to step into leadership roles and help bring the new swimmers in the program up to speed.

The Hawks opened their season Tuesday against Tomahawk.