Jennifer Hoffer – Sports Writer –
A native from Arvada Colorado, freshman Louis Geist, has blended quite nicely in the winning swimming program at Southern. If anything, Geist brings just that much more talent and championship experience to the pool for the Owls.
“I swam at Mullen High School in Denver, Colorado,” Geist said. “It was a really good experience. We won state my junior year, placed second in the 500 at the state championships and was named captain my senior year.”
Coming cross-country to Connecticut from Colorado wasn’t too nerve wreaking, Geist said.
“I really thought that Southern would be the best opportunity for me to get faster and be apart of a good team,” Geist said. “The recruiting trip only helped my decision more as I fell in love with the team and the coaching staff.”
But Geist gives a lot of credit to his teammates based on his and the teams overall success this season.
“We push each other everyday,” Geist said. “Day in and day out we push each other. You also have to give a lot of credit to the coaching staff and what they have done this year to help us all improve.”
Sal Marino, a senior, said the future for Geist and the younger squad looks very bright.
“They’re all improving,” Marino said. “They’re going to be a pretty top of the line team next year and in the coming years.”
Geist said he has a goal set in mind to winning three more conference championships and a great few years of swimming with a great group of kids.
Jimmy Zummo, junior, further emphasized the success and excitement Geist and the rest of the freshman and sophomores are going to experience in the coming years.
In day two of the Northeast-10 Swimming and Diving Championships, Geist recorded a time of 4:04:06 in the 400 individual medley.
He credits a lot of his improvements to his hard work ethic.
“My strokes and turns have really progressed a lot over the course of this season,” Geist said.
Geist said he is hopeful that he and the team continue this winning success in the coming years. Geist said he not only loves the competition he loves swimming for the fun of it, too.
“When I was 10 years old, I watched the 2004 Summer Olympics and realized I wanted to get into the sport and started swimming,” Geist said. “And obviously I’ve never stopped. I’ve been swimming ever since.”
The men, again, reclaimed the number one spot in the Northeast-10 Championships winning for the ninth time in ten years last Saturday.
Geist almost broke a conference record in the 1650, finishing in first with a time of 15:59:06.
