After a tough but worthwhile season, the Birmingham Community Charter High School boys varsity swim team ended with a challenging competition at city finals. The competition was held on May 13th, the swimmers that had the best time were qualified to go and compete.

“We reached city finals and it went pretty well, we got 6th or 7th place, and our whole league was pretty challenging,” senior Max Grinfeld said.

Grinfeld, captain of the varsity swim team has improved majorly and really shown leadership skills throughout the four years he has been on the team. As captain, it’s his duty to teach the new members of the team the rules and how to stay focused during the swim meets. On May 13th members of the team competed against some of the best schools, such as Palisades Charter High School, Granada Hills Charter High School and Cleveland High School. The team placed pretty high in the finals for having a new, fresh team, since the majority of the members graduated last year.

“Throughout this season I have learned how to work better with a team and improve my speed in my strokes,” sophomore Ryan Sokolov said.

Each swimmer is committed to improving their own rank. In order for the team to stay fit and really excel in the sport, they have practice everyday and most of the swimmers practice on their own time as well.  Grinfeld’s highest rank this season was that he got 7th place in cities for breaststroke. Sokolov’s achievement has been his 100 meter to 57 seconds and improving his 50 meter freestyle to 24 seconds. Ben Sanchez claims to have improved overall as a swimmer with it being his first year on varsity.

“You get really close with people after spending 4 years with them, the whole swim team is my family,” Grinfeld said.