While the season is not yet over, City High boys’ swimming coach Stephen Cimaglia already views it as a success.

“I’m thoroughly impressed at the strides they’ve made from the beginning of the season till now,” said Cimaglia, one of the team’s two coaches alongside Zane Hugo. “We had swimmers who just had just started there and then, and we had swimmers who had been doing it forever. That’s cool to see and that’s what high school season is all about.”

One freshman in particular has helped this team succeed: Forrest Frazier ‘20, who holds 17 state records in club swimming and who recently competed at Junior Nationals.

“Forrest has done an amazing job this year,” Sam Naylor ‘18 said, one of the team’s three captains. “He’s gone to almost every single practice and he’s worked very hard.”

Frazier’s most recent achievement came at the Mississippi Valley Conference, where he broke both the MVC and the school record in the 200 individual medley.

“I’d been hoping to get that record for a little bit of time now, and I got the school record in it too, so that was awesome,” Frazier said. “I was really excited when I saw the board and knew I’d got it.”

More than just being good athletes, freshmen like Frazier and Louis Steffon, a club teammate of Frazier’s, can help the rest of the team improve.

“It’s good for guys to see their training program and how they train in the water and how they’re focused, “ Cimaglia said. “But it’s also good for the freshmen to see the seniors and to have their experience to draw on. It’s nice to have that leadership going back and forth, to help us succeed.”

With their season drawing to a close, the boys’ team has less than a month to achieve its goal of getting individuals to the state meet in Marshalltown on Saturday, February 11th.

“We want to get some people to state. That’s the plan,” Naylor said. “Get some people to state and get some wins.”

To reach that result, the team has been putting its efforts into focusing on districts, where the swimmers will attempt to qualify for the state meet.

“Pretty much everybody on the team right now is just stepping up and putting everything they’ve got into getting ready for districts,” Frazier said. “For me, (my goal) would be to win a state championship in whatever I swim at state. To do that, I’m gonna need to keep preparing myself the way I have been this whole season.”

Naylor says he is proud of the team’s accomplishments this season and is already looking forward to the future.

“We’ve done a lot of good work,” Naylor said. “I’m excited about next year. I think we can do even better.”