Winter Sports Preview: Swimming
Double Vision: Hickok wants to complete his third trip to the state meet with two championships.
Worthington Christian senior Austin Hickok has a clear vision for this year’s swimming season’s end. He wants to complete his quest to win two state titles.
Which two events he will compete in, however, remains fuzzy.
“My goal is to win two events at states, but I don’t know what events I’m going to do exactly,” Hickok said. “I could do the 50(-yard), 100 or 200 freestyle or the 100 butterfly. My favorite event is the 200 free, but the event I’m best at is the 50 free.”
Hickok, who set a district record in the 100 butterfly (49.72) last season, was 2.74 seconds from achieving that goal at the Division II state championship, held at the C.T. Branin Natatorium in Canton last year. The swimmer placed second in the 50 free in 20.81 to finish behind Vincent Warren’s Mason Francis (20.19) and took fourth in the 100 fly (50.18) as Oak Harbor’s Austin Sorg won in 48.06.
Based on Hickok’s performances, the Warriors placed 23rd overall in the Division II state championship with 32 points. Not bad, considering Worthington Christian competed the season with just three swimmers.
Warriors coach Jim Peterfish anticipates having a three-member boys’ team this season, and the school will not be fielding a girl’s squad. Rounding out the rest of the team are sophomore Sam Zhu and freshman Josiah Doyle. As a freshman, Zhu placed 13th in the 100 backstroke (1:01.38) and the 100 fly (58.53) at the district meet.
The girls’ team consisted of a single swimmer during the 2023-24 season, but she transferred to another school this year.
“With just three swimmers, we obviously can’t compete in a relay, and each swimmer can only swim in two events,” Peterfish said. “So, that limits us.
“There are a lot of very cooperative coaches that allow us to compete in meets with them. We’ll also go to invitationals. It’s a mixed bag. On the one hand, it does limit the number of meets we can get into, but on the other hand, we have more training time.”
Being a small team is familiar territory for Worthington Christian. The Warriors last fielded a full team during the 2019-20 season. That year, Worthington Christian had 11 participants, its largest contingent. The girl’s team fielded five swimmers and three divers, including Lena Morgan (WC ’21), who won the Division II state diving title, and the boy’s team had three swimmers.
Worthington Christian will share pool time this season with Bishop Ready, which has two girls and one boy swimmer.
OHSAA regulations state no two teams can combine for competitions, meaning the Silver Knights and the Warriors can’t compete as a relay in any meet.
Hickok has had a slow but steady climb to Canton. As a freshman, Hickok failed to advance to the state meet after he placed ninth in the 100 fly (57.2) at the district meet.
“Around my 10th grade year, I decided to focus on one sport,” Hickok said. “I started with soccer because that was what I was more interested in then. The running was too much for me, and I decided to go all in with swimming.”
Hickok increased his training to the senior level of club swimming, which required intensive training, with eight practices a week.
As a sophomore, Hickok made it to the state meet. In the 100 fly, he tied Chillicothe’s Ryan Blum for 15th place when both finished with a 53.01. He also finished 28th in the 100 backstroke after swimming a 55.10 in the preliminaries.
“During my sophomore year, it was just me understanding the sport better,” he said. “I was improving a lot but that will happen when you are doing something new.
“In my junior year, I decided I wanted to focus on swimming. I joined a secondary program called Swim Strong Dryland, which was strength training for swimmers.”
The program’s participants train outside the pool six days a week in addition to their in-pool training.
This year, Hickok hopes the training will continue to pay off.
“(What drives me) is the passion for the sport,” he said. “Everything feels better when I get into the pool.”