Saturday, Dec. 6 marked the first time the former Metro league champions had an invitational meet against 16 other competitor schools. The boys varsity swim team placed 12th, with Ann Arbor Skyline and Novi dominating.

“It was nice to get back into the pool and swim competitively for the first time this season,” sophomore Justin Beemer said. “It gave me a chance to get back into it without too much pressure, since the invitational was a fundraiser. We host the meet in order to raise money as an alternative to selling products as a fundraiser.”

To prepare for the season, the team started practicing in November, just two weeks before Thanksgiving break.

“We practice almost everyday.” junior Joey Perrera said. “There’s practice from 5:30 a.m. on Monday through Thursday. There aren’t any morning practices Friday, but we practice after school. We do a variety of things to practice for the meets, like on Friday we swam broken 100’s.”

The last event was the Orley Spees memorial relay, in honor of a longtime Fenton coach and swim icon who recently passed away. Typical relays are four people, but this relay involves eight swimmers that swim 50 yards each. Fenton was in the lead to start out, but ended up placing 6th.

“It was an honor to swim in the last relay,” sophomore Kyle Banner said. “I swam in four relays and overall the last one went by faster, even though there were more swimmers involved.”

The next meet the swim team has is against Powers on Dec. 16, with another one following on Dec. 17 against Lapeer. Both are home meets.