Trojans junior diver Luke Hawkins picks up where he left off last season, wins dual meet vs. Merrillville

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Not all of Chesterton’s top boys competed in the swim and dive team’s season-opening dual meet against visiting Merrillville, but the reigning DAC champion diver did.
Luke Hawkins, who edged Lake Central’s Landon Wrobiewski 399.20-399.00 at the DAC meet in his sophomore season, didn’t look the slightest bit rusty in his 2025-26 season debut.
In dual meets, each competitor gets six dives, as opposed to 11 in the postseason. Other than that, Hawkins looked like very much the same diver as he did after daily practices and competitions as a sophomore led him to the highest individual finish of any athlete on the Chesterton boys team, 21st.
Hawkins said he practiced about three days a week during the offseason, and it showed. Merrillville didn’t have any divers and he had no trouble winning with a score of 223.75. Teammates Devon Thomas (164.50) and Peytin Ellis (152.30) placed second and third.
Now that he is back practicing daily, Hawkins said he is confident he can improve and lists breaking former teammate Lucas Lauzon’s school record of 490.85 as a goal and he has two years to try to make it happen. Lauzon is a sophomore diving for Southern Illinois University.
“It’s a high record, but I want to break it,” Hawkins said.
Nobody broke any records in the dual vs. Merrillville but there were some impressive performances from young swimmers at the meet for Chesterton, which won every event.
Sophomore Vlad Lutterman won the 200-yard individual medley (2:11.75) and 100 breaststroke (1:05.34), joining freshman Patrick Mulchay as a double winner: 100 butterfly (1:00.90), 100 backstroke (1:03.38).
Fellow freshmen Daniel Vidt (1:56.11; 200 free), Aadin Guzzo (53.03; 100 free) and Ryan Seaman also won events.
Junior Andrew Andrew Kazmierczak swam a 24.22 to win the 50 free.
Relay winners:
200 medley: Mason Hayes, Guzzo, Mulchay and Kazmierczak swam a 1:52.68.
200 free: Vidt, Ezrah Walsh, Guzzo and Carl Schiller were clocked in 1:37.15.
400 free relay (3:47.37): Schiller, Walsh, Mulchay and Vidt swam a 3:47.37.
The competition thickens considerably when the Trojans next compete on Tuesday at Crown Point.