By Griffin Thurston

Fargo North Spartans win the border battle and Princeton dual in very close competitions. On Friday, January 11th the Fargo North Spartans traveled down to Princeton Minnesota to compete in a dual that was a part of the two-day meet. The Princeton dual brought along a lot of victories, with Junior Peyton Fisher winning the 200-yard Individual medley and Senior Mason Engler winning the 100-yard butterfly, along with all three Fargo North A Relay’s taking first place. The Border Battle was on Saturday, January 12th, with teams such as St. Cloud Apollo and St. Paul Central. Fargo North won the award last year, and everyone was hoping to reclaim the trophy. Senior Payton Gabel cruised past everyone in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100yard freestyle to take first place in the events, as well as Fisher taking first place in the 100-yard breaststroke.

The Spartans are rolling, with practices getting harder every single day. Each day brings upon a new challenge, in the hopes that it makes everyone better. With dry land on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as well as weight training on Tuesday and Thursday, the swim team spends a fair amount of time outside of the pool to become all around better athletes in an effort to sail past the competition. Weight training has been virtually remastered for the Swim team, from previous years of just doing free weights and doing whatever you want, to now pairing up with Sanford Power to get the most out of your workout. Coach Dylan works hard with the Swim team to get everyone doing what they’re supposed to be doing, and most importantly doing it correctly and safely. It’s different from what you might expect, with regular squats and bench press getting thrown out for different alternatives, such as single leg squats or one arm bench press. Lifting for swimming is similar but different for every sport, and Sanford Power gets it right with the lifts that they recommend for the workouts.

Next meets include the Davies Invite at Fargo Davies on February 9, as well as Senior night in a dual against Grand Forks on February 15th. The last meet of the regular season will be on February 16th, In a dual against Davies at Fargo Davies. The EDC competition will occur on February 23rd, at the Hulbert Aquatic Center in West Fargo, where the Spartans will try to claim their third straight EDC title, against notable teams such as West Fargo and Fargo South. The State competition will be on both March 1st and March 2nd, at the Bismarck aquatic center. This will be a very exciting meet, with very high hopes for the Fargo North Spartans to get into the top three at state. Top competitors at this meet will be the usual Minot and Bismarck Century, but the win against Century in both the triangular and the Manley Invite, The team will hopefully have a very successful end to the season. At the state swim meet in Bismarck this past weekend the Fargo North swim team took third place, finishing only behind Minot and Bismarck Century. Anchored by a win in the 200 freestyle relay along with strong showings from Seniors Payton Gabel and Mason Engler and Junior Peyton Fisher, they scored a respectable 267 points.