Ethan Zhou `26

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Earlier this semester, the Strake Jesuit Varsity Swimming and Diving team’s 2025-26 season culminated in a record-breaking performance at the state level. On February 20th, the team traveled to Austin for the UIL 6A State Championship at the Jamail Texas Swimming Center, ready for two days of high-intensity, high-stakes competition. At the end, they would walk away with an unprecedented second place sweepstakes trophy and six medals—three bronze, two silver, and one gold. 

The road to this victory began nearly a decade ago. For each of the team’s four state medalists—Michael Yuen ’26, Jacob Bougaieff ’27, Jack Maddan ’28, and Evan Halastaras ’27—their journey in swimming started by being thrown into a pool at a young age, just two in Evan’s case. From there, they slowly grew to appreciate the activity and began competitive club swimming at eight to ten years old. Although competitive swimming was initially challenging, each athlete found a source of motivation that would propel them forward, from a supportive team culture to a passion for being in the water. As Michael put it, the sport is “one that you’ve got to learn to love.” 

Indeed, training for competitive swimming is especially difficult. As each of the four swimmers agrees, staying at the top of your game requires relentless practice, almost every single day, especially as they compete for both Jesuit and their club team. Without that daily, consistent feel for the water, performance stagnates; as the saying goes, “Skip one day and it takes two to get it back.” In addition, the students must also balance their athletic careers with their academic ones, and when practice takes hours daily, it can become especially difficult to finish homework or focus on other extracurriculars. However, to the four students, swimming is not work—it is their break. As Evan puts it, “After a whole day of school, practice is a two-and-a-half-hour break from work where you can just have fun.” On top of a positive mindset, the students have also developed time management skills to manage their workloads, from categorizing assignments to developing what Michael calls his “rhythm of discipline.” These strategies are critical to helping students endure the long competitive swimming season. 

Competitive swimming spans from the first PE practices in August to the state championship in February. Starting in late September and through January, Jesuit competes mostly locally in meets against only one or two teams, with the Texas Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association Championship area championships in early December. During January and February, the team enters the post-season, often competing once every two weeks at tournaments such as UIL regionals. As Michael described it, “Those are two very heavy months in terms of training and then competition.” This post-season culminates in the UIL 6A State Championship. 

At that championship, Jesuit swimmers performed at their best not just as individuals, but as a team. In Michael’s words, “Keeping our training consistent and keeping our morale up and knowing what we could do at state was the best motivator. We needed to have that mentality to dominate and to break records.” Indeed, that team camaraderie and the pride of representing our school separates Jesuit from traditional teams because we train our athletes to become not just better swimmers, but better men. And the results couldn’t be clearer. In individual categories, Jesuit won 4 medals including Jacob’s gold in the 100-yard breaststroke and silver in the 200-yard individual medley and Jack’s bronze in the 100-yard breaststroke and the 200-yard individual medley. Together, the students competed in the team relays, winning silver in the 200-yard medley relay and bronze in the 400-yard freestyle relay, which produced one of the students’ most cherished swimming memories. As Michael described it, “It was the last event at State, and we were sixth going into the second half of the race. We had Jack dive in the water to catch up a bit, and we rose to fourth or fifth. And then, Jacob anchored our relay with a monster 44-second 100-yard freestyle, an insanely fast time. And that 44 brought us home to get a bronze medal. We didn’t win, but it was huge to be able to take home third, and it really sealed our spot to take second overall.” For years, simply qualifying our swimmers for the state tournament was an achievement. Now, after years of hard work from coaches, administrators, and the students themselves, Jesuit swimmers have broken through to earn enough medals to finish second in team standings at one of the nation’s most competitive high school championship meets. 

As they reflected on their historic victory, each of the four swimmers gave their advice for any of the underclassmen interested in swimming. Jacob counseled, “Trust in your ability to work hard, and trust in all the hard work you’ve put in, because if that’s one thing I’ve learned, hard work pays off, but never when you think it will.” Jack said, “Enjoy your time because enjoying your sport is vital for the longevity of it.” For Evan, “Don’t compare yourself to others. If you’re focusing on other people, you’re going to get in your head and put yourself down, and that’s what you can’t have in this sport. You need to have confidence.” And, rounding out the team, Michael offered, “Buy in and give it your all. If you give the team and the program your all, it’ll go far. Take my scenario. In my freshmen year we hadn’t won a district championship in four years, but when I arrived, we began to build a stronger team. We had all the guys willing to train and willing to share progress together, and that made history. Now, we’ve won four consecutive district titles, regional runner up, and state runner up, all because I bought in along with my teammates. So, if you’re willing to buy in, your team will be more than willing to help you out.” 

Next year, Michael will attend Villanova University to swim at the collegiate level, and Jacob, still a junior, is committed to Stanford University.