As field hockey, football and other fall sports plunge to an end, the winter season's just gearing up. The GS swim team looks ahead to a promising season with junior Zach Frenchek leading the way.

Although Frenchek has been a member of the team for just two years because of a shoulder injury in the 2002-2003 school year, he has been swimming competitively for the YMCA for eight years. Today, he is still part of the YMCA Stingray team.

Practices take place five days a week during the swim season and two times as many hours in the summer. Frenchek said that he sometimes gets tired of all the time spent in the pool, which explains why he took a break after summer nationals this year where he placed 101st out of 122 participants.

As for the GS team, Frenchek participates in the 100 meter backstroke, 100 and 50 meter freestyle races and the 200 meter medley and free relays.

“We have a lot of new people this year,” Frenchek said about the GS team. “I think we have more potential and in a year or two the team will be a lot stronger.”

He hopes more of his teammates will make it to WPIALs this year and plans on encouraging his peers to swim better and faster to achieve this.

After high school Frenchek plans on going into “something dealing with the human mind” such as psychology or sociology. His swimming career might be in the pool during his last meet because he feels “it might not be worth it to lose time during college.”