The swim team at St. George’s likely holds the longest provincial championship winning streak in B.C. high school sports history.
As a boys school, St. George’s can’t compete in half the events at the co-ed championship and yet the Saints have won 12 consecutive B.C. titles.
That’s right. Since 2001, they’ve been champions 12 times over.
“We’ve had a great run and the boys are all aware that we’re on this run,” said the school’s aquatics direct and swim coach Dustin Hersee.
Making their streak a baker’s dozen will be a treat but isn’t the priority, he said.
“I’m more concerned that we go in and we do the best job that we can. It seems like a cliché, but I’m not as concerned with the outcome as with the process.
“It’s the values we’re trying to instill in the boys and the character of playing to win and doing everything we can but we’ll still be able to walk away with our heads held high if it doesn’t happen.”
The Saints two captains vowed to leave nothing behind in the pool.
“I’m never tired of winning,” said Brandon De Costa, 17, an open category swimmer who trains daily through the winter with the Richmond Rapids. “It means even more to us now that we’re graduating to continue on the winning tradition.”
“[It’s] the legacy,” added Leo Shen, a “B” category swimmer who swims with a summer club but otherwise trains only with St. George’s during the winter. The open and “B” swimmers race separately and the latter are restricted to two practices a week.
Shen, 17, has his sights set on breaking a 2007 school record and 1988 B.C. record in the 50-metre breaststroke and enters the heats with the fastest time of 31.83 seconds. The school record is 31.60 and the provincial benchmark is 31.29.
“I think about going for that record and seeing my name up there,” he said, motioning to a ledger on the wall over the pool deck at the school that names students for their record performances. “That gets me going. I’m going to get really focused and get a good rest the night before.”
The swimmers, both in Grade 12 and among seven grads headed to provincials this weekend at Watermania in Richmond, said they learned about the finer points of preparing for competition from Hersee, a Vancouverite who graduated from Lord Byng. The coach arrived at St. George’s in 2001 having just reached the highest achievement in sport. A swimmer at UBC and with the national team, Hersee represented Canada at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and finished 21st in the world in the 200m backstroke.
Under his tenure, the Saints intensified workouts, lengthened training distances and shifted their culture to a more team focus. “They’d never really been pushed,” he said.
He also noted the numerous “B” swimmers and so Hersee put an emphasis on relays. Alost every athlete races on three relays and in one individual event.
This year they qualified one or even two teams in almost every relay (except for girls and co-ed events, of course). Relay events score double the points — 40 for first compared to 20 for winning an individual event — and St. George’s worked its high participation numbers to its advantage.
St. George’s has one more essential advantage: the school has its own six-lane 25-metre pool. During swim classes for P.E., Hersee could identify the athletes with promise and the team soon doubled to roughly 100 swimmers. He coaches alongside two other teachers and two alumni and this year the team counted 99 athletes, of which 25 will race at provincials.
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