Qualified for Quarantine: Boys swim and dive missed Sunflower League meet due to team COVID exposure

The boys’ swim and dive team missed their Sunflower League meet, scheduled for Feb. 4, after a team member tested positive for COVID, exposing the entire team.

The team had to quarantine for 10 days starting Feb. 1 and get tested on Feb. 3. With the Varsity Sunflower League Prelims on Feb. 4 and Finals on Feb. 6, the team had to miss the meet, according to Head Coach Wiley Wright.

According to senior Kaleb Hagg, the team heard about their exposure after a teammate sent a text in the team group chat on Feb. 1. That same day, the boys’ swim and dive team members were called out of class during their fourth hour by either their parents or the nurse and sent home to quarantine.

Not being able to practice or compete for 10 days, swimmers like freshman Reece Baker are concerned for how they’ll be able to receive qualifying times before the state meet.

“When you miss even three days, let alone two weeks of swim, it really gets you out of shape and takes a while to get back to where you were,” Baker said. “So that’s going to be pretty hard for our swimmers at state.”

According to Hagg, while most of the swimmers are confident they’ll be prepared for state despite the break in their practice schedule, some are still nervous they won’t have the chance to qualify.

Unable to compete in the Sunflower League meet, many swimmers were left without one of their biggest chances to qualify for the state meet — which is already more competitive than most years as only the top 24 times in each event will compete due to COVID precautions. With the Last Chance meet taking place on Feb. 11, many swimmers are worried about meeting their state times, something they’ve been working towards all season.

Baker was looking to cut his 200 IM time down to two minutes and 15 seconds — a state-qualifying time — in the Sunflower League meet. He now hopes to break that time in their final meet before state. Senior Sullivan Goettsch was also hoping to use the Sunflower League meet to qualify for state, and is now hoping he’ll be able to make it in their Last Chance meet.

“[Leading up to the league meet], we take what’s known as tapering for a few days where we don’t go as hard in practice to prepare our bodies for the meet to get better times and get cuts, and we won’t be able to get the opportunity this year at league,” Goettsch said. “We’ll have one last chance next week, which isn’t nearly the same atmosphere. So hopefully, a lot of our swimmers can still get the times to go.”

Hagg, along with most of the senior swimmers, was especially upset to miss this Sunflower League meet. East held a 16-year winning streak up until last year, where they lost to Olathe East, and had been working all season to reclaim that first-place status in the league.

“It just kills you on a whole other level, knowing that we were in a position to take back our league run that we had a few years ago,” Hagg said. “It was one of my biggest goals this year as a senior, and to not have the opportunity really does hurt, but I’m just gonna just try and move on from it as well as I can and not let it affect the ultimate goal of winning state.”

The non-seniors know how important it is that the team reclaims the status of first in the league, and according to Baker, will be even more determined next season to earn it back in honor of the current senior swimmers.

“It’s definitely gonna give us a drive,” Baker said. “We’re losing a lot of really good seniors, so we’re just going to try to do it for them.”

While some of the team has already been exposed to COVID and had to quarantine in the past, this is the first collective meet missed by the team due to a COVID exposure. The JV boys’ swim team had a COVID exposure at the beginning of the season, but they only missed practices since the meets hadn’t started yet.

Throughout the season, they’ve had to follow KSHSAA guidelines for COVID precautions. These precautions require that the swim and dive teams wear masks anytime they’re outside of the pool and are spread out more than before in their lanes. Some of the biggest changes, according to Hagg, have been the move from their normally three-hour practices to two hours, and not being allowed to practice for the two-week period over winter break.

According to Baker and Hagg, the team has felt as safe as possible during practice with the COVID guidelines in place.

Missing one of their last meets was not only a problem for those who had still hoped to get a time for state, but also made seniors like Goettsch and Hagg sad to be missing one of their last chances to compete on the team. 

“A few days ago, I was already kind of down because I might have a total of four more swims already, and now that number has been cut in half, essentially,” Goettsch said. “Just knowing that the end is closer than you think it is, it’s hard to imagine.”

While it’s upsetting to the team that they can’t compete in one of their last meets, Hagg is sure that this setback will only fuel their hard work to prepare for state.

“If anything, it’s just a little bit more fuel to fire that we missed out on a good opportunity for us to get fast times,” Hagg said. “We still have our Last Chance meet coming up that’s the week before state, so I think once we get back in the pool and get practicing at a high level we’ll have a really good Last Chance meet and we’ll still show that we’re one of the strongest teams in the state even without swimming at league.”