MAKING A SPLASH: Wilberforce School swimmer Vasily Yanovsky displays his breaststroke form in a meet this winter. Junior star Yanovsky qualified for the 100-yard breast in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Meet of Champions, becoming the first swimmer in program history to compete at the MOC. (Photo provided by the Wilberforce School)

By Bill Alden

Vasily Yanovsky was shooting for a specific target this winter as he came into his junior season for the Wilberforce School swimming team.

“For me, the main goal was trying to break a minute in the 100 breaststroke,” said Yanovsky, who swims for the Peddie Aquatic Association club program when he is not in season for Wilberforce.
“It is a goal that transcends club and high school swimming for me. It is just like a mental barrier mostly, that I have been trying to do.”

While Yanovsky just missed achieving that goal, he accomplished a lot this winter, culminating the campaign by becoming the first Wilberforce swimmer to compete in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Meet of Champions as he qualified in the 100-yard breast.

“It was really amazing, just going there and knowing that a lot of my club friends are also going to be there to race against,” said Yanovsky. “It is the biggest meet I have ever been at in my whole life. It was a truly awesome experience.”

Yanovsky ended up placing 22nd in the meet held at the Gloucester Tech pool as he clocked a time of 1:00.09, a mere nine-hundredths from that elusive one-minute barrier. Yanovsky came into the meet seeded 35th in the event.

“I feel like it was really electrifying,” said Yanovsky, reflecting on the MOC experience. “I was swimming next to one of my teammates from Peddie. I knew I had to beat him and he knew he had to beat me. It was awesome; also the fact that there were so many people there and some of my friends also came to support me.”

The support that Yanovsky gets on a daily basis from his Wilberforce teammates has helped him excel.

“We are really supportive of each other, doing dry land together and doing the workouts together,” said Yanovsky. “We joke around and it is always really fun.”

It has been fun for Yanovsky to see how the Wolverine program has progressed over the last three years.

“When I first came to the team, there was maybe two club swimmers on the whole team,” said Yanovsky “It wasn’t really serious but with the incoming freshman class this year, we had some really strong swimmers coming in. They grew so much.”

Having started swimming competitively at age seven when he joined the now-defunct West Windsor Whalers that summer, Yanovsky has relished the camaraderie he has found on the deck during his time in the sport.

“I feel just in general, the competition in swimming is fun,” said Yanovsky, who competed for the X-Cel club before joining the Peddie Aquatics program. “I really enjoyed getting to know people in the swimming world, talking with swimmers my age and hanging out with them.”

Wilberforce co-head coach Dave Madigan enjoyed watching Yanovsky make history this winter with his MOC appearance.

“That is the first person who has ever made it for us, that is a great accomplishment,” said Madigan, who guides the program along with Frank Fitzgerald. “That was my goal for him from day one. It just gives us name recognition, they are asking who is the Wilberforce School. It puts us on the map.”

Yanovsky has emerged as a leader for the Wolverines in and out of the pool.

“He is one of our four captains, he has been with the program all three years,” said Madigan, noting that Yanovsky holds the school records in the 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley, 100 breast, 100 backstroke, and 100 butterfly as well as being part of school-best 200 medley relay, 200 free relay, and 400 free relay quartets. “He has been one of the best swimmers from when he came in. He has always been very good with our team.”

The Wilberforce team has added a number of swimmers over the last few years as the program has become more and more competitive.

“It is almost tripled, we have almost one third of the whole upper school swimming right now,” said Madigan, who brought several swimmers this winter to the Eastern Interscholastic Championship Meet at Franklin & Marshall. “We have 29 people and 14 of the 29 were freshmen.”

The program trains four days a week at the Windsor Athletic Club along with the school’s middle school squad. The upper school swimmers start their practices with dry land workouts while the middle school team gets in its swimming practice. The upper school squad then has the pool for the last hour of the practice.

While the Wilberforce swimmers don’t get as much pool time as other high school teams, they have made the most out of those sessions.

“Each individual is different and you have different groups come through,” said Madigan, noting that the Wilberforce regular season meets are typically co-ed due to the size of the team. “These kids are making tremendous progress and getting confidence in themselves to cope with other things. It comes from the spirit and the camaraderie.”

In reflecting on the progress made by the Wolverine swimmers, Madigan gives co-head coach Fitzgerald much of the credit for their improvement.

“Frank has been there since the beginning like nine years ago, he knows all the technical stuff, I can’t do this without him,” said Madigan, who was in his sixth season with the program this winter. “He is a wonderful, outstanding coach.”

Yanovsky, for his part, points to the coaching of Madigan and Fitzgerald as being integral to his historic campaign.

“They were incredibly supportive of me the whole year, they were absolutely amazing,” said Yanovsky. “When you come out of the pool, coach Madigan has a prayer routine that he goes through. He is very motivational, he tells you to leave it all in the pool. Coach Fitzgerald swam at Princeton so he gives us a lot of technical advice. They make a real good combination.”