St. Joseph's Andrew Thompson is the HNT Boys Swimmer of the Year
Sure, it’s natural to still be tired after waking up at 4:30 in the morning for a 5:15 swim practice. Especially, if you had a club practice the previous evening. Throw in that St. Joseph High School’s Andrew Thompson is decidedly not a morning person, and you have the early a.m. blahs.
But the senior discovered one way to shake that zombie feeling.
“The water at Perth Amboy’s freezing, so as soon as you dive in you’re woken right up,” he said with a laugh. “Sometimes you’ll get there in the morning, and kids will be walking around like they don’t want to be there. And then kids will get in the water, and you’ll just see them wake right up.”
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The snooze button doesn’t exist if you want to be a successful swimmer. And Thompson earned the Matt Rein Ironman Award for attending every morning practice his sophomore and junior seasons at the Raritan Valley YMCA. This year, he didn’t get it. Don’t worry, he didn’t oversleep. Rather, he’d often weight lift with his club team on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.
“You don’t really ever get used to it in a sense, but you’re able to deal with it,” Thompson said. “All those morning practices and the night practices with my club, they definitely ended up paying off in the end.”
Thompson is the 2016-17 Home News Tribune Boys Swimmer of the Year for the second straight season. The senior captured the 200 IM championship at the Greater Middlesex Conference meet, and was part of the gold-medal winning 200-yard medley relay and anchored the 400-yard freestyle relay teams.
That helped the Falcons capture their 39th-straight GMC title by 137.17 points over second-place East Brunswick.
“He was definitely a leader in and out of the pool,” St. Joseph coach Dan Cahill said. “He stepped up. When we needed him in an event, he was there to do it. If we needed him to motivate the team, he was there motivating the team. He got the team going when they needed to get going. And he definitely led the team this year exceptionally well.”
The versatile Thompson swam in several different meets during the season. But when it came time for the GMC Tournament on Jan. 28 at the Raritan Bay YMCA, he defended his 200 IM championship.
The 200 IM is sort of like the decathlon for swimmers. It consists of two laps of butterfly, two laps of backstroke, two laps of breaststroke and two laps of freestyle. Thompson’s least-best event is the breaststroke, yet longtime assistant coach Jimmy Petrozziello saw something in him his freshman year.
“Coach Jimmy actually told me that I would end up winning the GMC and I kind of looked at him like he was crazy,” Thompson said. “But now looking back, having won it twice, it’s like, ‘Wow, he was right.’ … It’s come a long way.”
Not by accident.
Hours of work helped make him a complete 200 IM competitor. Still, his butterfly and backstroke are his best events, so he’ll try to get out in front and have a lead entering the third leg of the IM.
In the 200 medley, he swam the butterfly portion. He enjoyed being a part of the relay teams.
“They’re a lot of fun because you’re always with your teammates,” he said “And there’s just a component to them that just makes them a lot of fun. … You want to swim your fastest because you know that they’re going to be also.”
It was a small senior class, so Thompson was especially able to bond with his fellow seniors Tyler Catania, Chris Muniz and Jonathan Zebrowski. The team bonding included a trip to Woodberry Forest School in Virginia for a few days of swimming and barbeque. “The food is what everyone talks about, it’s so good,” said Thompson, who prefers the pulled pork.
Thompson, a resident of Milltown, doesn’t usually spend his time eating during the season. Those ironman awards meant something to him, especially since it was named after a former St. Joseph swimmer who attended every morning practice in his four-year career. Rein died in a fire near the campus of Albright College in September 2014.
Rein’s parents are still a part of the St. Joseph program, coming to meets and his dad occasionally attends the morning practices.
“It definitely means more now that it’s named after Matt,” Thompson said. “My freshman year it was just the Ironman Award and not that many people would go to practice every single day and wake up that early. But then after it was named after him, you could definitely see a jump in more people showing up to every single practice.”
Thompson would sometimes go to both the St. Joseph’s morning practice and to the Raritan Valley YMCA club team practice from 7 to 9 p.m. Next season, he’ll continue his career at the College of New Jersey. His sister Courtney, who went to Spotswood High School, was a sophomore this season for the college’s swim team.
“I can see that he loves the sport and he loves the camaraderie that comes with it,” Cahill said. “He definitely was able to express that to the rest of the team this past year.”
ALL-GREATER MIDDLESEX CONFERENCE SELECTIONS
(As selected by the league's coaches)
ALL-CONFERENCE
Sean Doran, St. Joseph; George Wade, St. Joseph; Andrew Thompson, St. Joseph; Sean Carlucci, St. Joseph; Andrew Galarza, JP Stevens; Brandon Evers, Piscataway; Julian Park, Metuchen; Logan D’Amore, Wardlaw – Hartridge; Akhil Yetukuri, North Brunswick; Ashwin Gokhale, North Brunswick; Jordan Leonardo, North Brunswick; Jesse Gibbons, North Brunswick; Joel Kincade, Piscataway; Tyler Catania, St. Joseph; Michael Botting, St. Joseph; John Piccinic, Colonia; Luca Biagiotti, East Brunswick; Kyle Printon, Bishop Ahr; Maxwell Wang, East Brunswick; Mallick Shayshadri, JP Stevens; Mike D’Esposito, St. Joseph; Aaron Wang, East Brunswick.
COACH OF THE YEAR: Sean Carney, East Brunswick. SPORTSMANSHIP: CarrieAnn Egan-Ragavas, North Brunswick.
ALL-RED DIVISION
Sean Doran, St. Joseph; George Wade, St. Joseph; Andrew Thompson, St. Joseph; Sean Carlucci, St. Joseph; Tyler Catania, St. Joseph, Michael Botting, St. Joseph; Jordan Leonardo, North Brunswick; Jesse Gibbons, North Brunswick; Akhil Yetukuri, North Brunswick; Ashwin Gokhale, North Brunswick; Andrew Galarza, JP Stevens; Brandon Evers, Piscataway; Nathan Borges, Piscataway; Joel Kincade, Piscataway; Luca Biagiotti, East Brunswick; Aaron Wang, East Brunswick; Dominick D’Esposito, St. Joseph; Maxwell Wang, East Brunswick; Kyle Printon, Bishop Ahr; Jacob Snow, East Brunswick; Mallick Shayshadri, JP Stevens; Aris Chung, JP Stevens.
COACH OF THE YEAR: Sean Carney, East Brunswick. SPORTSMANSHIP: CarrieAnn Egan-Ragavas, North Brunswick.
ALL-WHITE DIVISION
Logan D’Amore, Wardlaw–Hartridge; Julian Park, Metuchen; Jones Gurski, Woodbridge; Zachary Brown, Wardlaw–Hartridge; Advith Chegu, J.F. Kennedy; Chris Whittington, Metuchen; John Piccinic, Colonia; Christopher Pear, Colonia; Matthew Karlovitch, Metuchen; Mikolaj Jucha, Colonia; Garrison Chura, Metuchen; Michael Halaj, J.F. Kennedy; Adrian Hernandez, Colonia; Bram Kaplan, Metuchen; Armaan Kapoor, Wardlaw–Hartridge; Dan Schleif, Metuchen; Russell Van Liew, J.F. Kennedy; Jacob Dale, Metuchen; Raymond Chen, Edison; Jason Yin, Wardlaw-Hartridge; Jeremiah Velez, Woodbridge; Joey DiVizio, Metuchen.
COACH OF THE YEAR: Ricardo Viteri, J.F. Kennedy. SPORTSMANSHIP: Peter Morrison, Woodbridge.