On Friday, Sept. 23, the Swim and Dive team competed in the first district-wide meet of the year. Both the boys’ and girls’ teams ended up taking second place, falling only to the Vandegrift Vipers.

Grady Radcliff ‘23 made a significant contribution to the team’s score. He is one of the senior leaders of this team. Radcliff placed second in the 100-yard butterfly and placed seventh in the 100-butterfly. Radcliff’s ability to swim most races makes him a diverse swimmer.

“I think it was a good meet,” Radcliff said. “I felt that we did pretty well considering the fact that we didn’t have Steven Ma ‘25 at the meet. I swam the 100-fly and breast and I thought that I did solid.”

Coach Matthew McBrearty has now been at Westwood for the past ten years. He is looking towards leading the team to their ninth district title in his time as the coach. McBrearty has a strong team that is hungry to win. The team started out strong for their first meet. However, they have the whole season to improve and reach new goals.

“I thought that the district is extremely deep,” McBrearty said. We’re gonna have to really do things right if we want to keep our streak alive. For me, it wasn’t about winning this meet but rather getting a feel for the district. We could’ve won if I put everyone in their best events, but I felt that everyone needs to get lots of different events over the year.”

The team swims next at the MavWood swim meet, on Friday, Oct. 7.