On December 5^th at the first swim meet of the season, David Fitch broke the 30 year old Wilmot- Babcock pool records in the 100 freestyle with a time of 47.38 seconds and the 50 freestyle with a time of 21.32 seconds. While he narrowly missed the school records, his best times outside of the Williston pool have greatly surpassed the cuts in both events.

At Junior Nationals in Atlanta, Georgia on December 10^h and 12^th, Fitch swam a best time of a 20.94 seconds in the 50 freestyle, placing 31^st of 89 swimmers.

Fitch is the only captain of the Boy’s swim team, but he works together with the girl’s captains, Natalie Aquadro ‘17 and Jasmin Movassaghi ’16.

Movassaghi says, “David is so humble and everyone loves him. David is swimming and swimming is David.”

Aquadro has been swimming with seventh grade, and she has seen him improve drastically over the years. She remembers how “he used to wave at people while he swam, and now he doesn’t even look up. It is cool to see him at meets over the summer, because I really get to see how he gets better throughout the year.”

Last year, Fitch won the 100 freestyle at the New England Championships, and came in 2^nd for the 50 freestyle. Since then, he has taken over 2 seconds off in the 100 and over a second off in the 50.

Outside of school, Fitch swims for the Amherst Tritons, coached by Evan Maczka who has worked with him all summer and into the fall, and flew with him to Atlanta for Junior Nationals.

Fitch says “I like to swim for the rest of the team, really. It’s pretty easy to remember how to do, you go up and back!”

In an email, Maczka said that “David definitely has a natural gift when it comes to swimming, but what really helps to set him apart is his attitude and his work ethic – he WANTS to get faster (and my favorite part about coaching him). He is the type of athlete that makes coaching such a fun and rewarding experience.”

During the fall, Fitch again puts his team first by focusing on Water Polo versus putting in all his time to swimming only. Maczka notes how impressive David’s performances of late are especially due to this inability to be full-on with swimming workouts.

“What makes all of this so much more impressive is that because he was more focused on water polo this fall, we were only able to get about 10 swim workouts in,” Maczka continued.

With all of the improvement Fitch has shown recently, his performance for the coming season is looking bright.