BROOMFIELD >> Over the past two years, Monarch boys swimming reigned supreme at the BoCo Invite. Fairview flipped the script Saturday at the Broomfield Community Center when it nabbed the team win with 724 points.

Monarch finished second at 686.

The Knights’ victory came without last year’s two stars, Layton Sealman and James Kershaw, who took their careers to the University of Utah and Brown University, respectively. Instead, they’ve come to rely on their current senior standouts, Soren Koschmann and Wesley Schlachter, to carry them to victory, while added depth has helped them make an even bigger splash this year.

Koschmann picked up two wins in the extra, “fun” events after completing his 50-yard butterfly in 23.57 seconds and his 50-yard backstroke in 24.44 seconds. Schlachter, in sticking to the more traditional events, claimed gold in the 200-yard freestyle (1 minute, 46.90 seconds) and the 500 free (4:57.59).

Freshman Luca Smathers added another victory in the six-dive event with a score of 111.55, while sophomore Calvin Meymaris took it home in the 200-yard individual medley (2:02.81).

“It’s great to get those two wins, obviously, but I think the best part is just winning the meet,” Schlachter said. “I think that was kind of our goal, was to not let Monarch three-peat. I think that every single person on the team did their job. We have so many kids and I mean, obviously, we won a lot of these events from so many different kids. There’s so much diversity at the top.”

Schlachter, for his part, said that this season has been a challenge balancing his high school and club seasons. As the state meet season comes more into focus — with the Class 5A meet set to begin May 8 — he’s been taking extra steps to make sure he’s not fatiguing himself mentally and physically.

He said he plans to compete in the 200 free, the 500 free, the 400 free relay and, most likely, the 200 medley relay. He hopes to finish in the top five in the first three events.

“It’s definitely an awesome season and it’s great to kind of see that training pay off,” Schlachter said. “It’s different, just because we have our club meet, our championship meet, midway through the season. Mentally doing that and then having to come back in with minimal rest, and then kind of getting ready for the championship side of high school swimming is definitely a challenge.”

A step down or a step up?

Over the past few years in Class 5A, Monarch asserted itself as a top-10 contender every time the state meet rolled around. But nobody could compete with the likes of Cherry Creek and Regis Jesuit, who have accounted for all of the team titles since 2018.

The Coyotes are hoping their drop down to 4A this year will give them just the juice they need to fly all the way to the top, and Saturday foreshadowed what may come in two weeks’ time.

Their senior phenoms stole the show per usual, with Gavin Keogh winning the 100 IM (50.57) and the 100 back (48.40), and Ethan DiFronzo securing victory in the 100 free (48.63) and 50 free (20.61). The pair also doubled up to claim the gold in the 200 free relay (1:25.04) and the 400 free relay (3:09.84).

Junior Tobin Howe (100 breast, 57.33) and sophomore Casey Halloran (11 dives, 450.70 points) threw in a couple more individual victories for good measure.

“My first three years I’ve been on the team, I feel like we’ve done pretty good in 5A,” DiFronzo, a Notre Dame commit, said. “I mean, three top-10 finishes and fourth (place) sophomore year. Now we’re in 4A. It’s obviously not going to be easy with teams like Mullen that have gotten significantly faster this year and, like, Silver Creek with their captains, James Story and Chaya (Ngampatipatpong). They’re both great. Obviously, it’s not going to be an easy thing, but I feel like going into the meet, we’re pretty confident that if we perform, we’ll be able to win it.”

DiFronzo added that he’s seen Monarch’s athletes improve significantly from the top of the lineup all the way down, and that sophomore twins Isaac and Everett Skillern have made big strides in their sprinting.

As of now, 26 Coyotes have qualified for the state meet with 98 total cuts, and they still have one regular-season meet left to try to push that number past 100.

Heavy is the crown

Monarch may hope to crown itself by season’s end, but first it’ll have to get past the reigning kings of Class 4A boys swimming, who were also in attendance at the Broomfield Community Center.

Silver Creek enjoyed its second team state title in four years last spring, and it has returned one of its two individual state champions in senior James story, who raked in individual gold in the 100 free and 200 free. He took on the butterfly in the Raptors’ 200 medley relay, which won with a 1:39.43 mark, then added fourth in the 200 free relay (1:30.84) on Saturday.

“It’s my last year of the three years that I did swim in high school,” Story said. “I kind of just want to enjoy it with the boys that are left and just kind of have fun. I mean, obviously, times are still a goal. I do want to perform at state. I do want to perform at leagues, but I think my main thing right now is just having fun before I go off to college.”

Story said he was performing to the best of his ability at the USA Swimming Speedo Sectional Championships last month and plans to compete in the 100 free, the 200 free, the 200 medley relay and the 400 free relay at the state meet in a couple of weeks.

He looks forward to seeing what his Raptors can do. “We lost a backstroker, Stephen Codevilla, last year,” Story said. “He was our backstroker, but I mean, we’re a pretty strong team this year. Even with those teams moving down to 4A — Monarch moved down, Poudre moved down, and we’re now in the same league and conference as Monarch and Legacy and Fairview — it’ll definitely be a lot more competition. I think we’re pretty strong. Our relays are strong. Our individual events are all pretty strong, but yeah, I’m excited.”

Time for him to fly

Legacy senior Hector Mu admitted his season hasn’t quite gone the way he had hoped, but during Saturday’s meet, he still showed out in the 100 butterfly, winning it with a time of 51.83 seconds.

“I won my main event, but I still added like three seconds; three, four seconds,” he said, adding, “I’ve been doing a lot of high school swimming, which isn’t nearly as intensive as club training.”

Mu mentioned that his conditioning has been a bit off during his final season with the Lightning, and that coupled with little rest has taken a significant hit to his times. Still, he’s been able to qualify for the 5A state meet in the 50 free and the 100 fly and looks forward to seeing what that competition will bring for himself and his teammates.

Next year, he’ll head to New York University.

“I think if I could go sub-21 (seconds) in the 50 free, and then if I could go like a 48 high up to 48 low at state, I’d be ecstatic,” Mu said. “We lost a lot of fast kids these last two years, so we’re kind of trying to recover from those losses. But as of right now, I think we’re doing pretty good.”