Medley relay team of Aadin Guzzo, Wolfe Lutterman, Patrick Mulchay and Nathan Fernandez gets Trojans boys swim team off to right start on way to 96-90 win over Valparaiso

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

As he strolled toward the diving board to warm up, Valparaiso's Evan Snyder looked at the scoreboard that showed the Chesterton boys had won the first event, the 200-yard medley relay, by five one-hundredths of a second, listened to the roar of the crowd, and made a prediction that he was certain would be accurate: "This is going to be an amazing meet."
Spot on.
The Chesterton boys defeated Valparaiso in a DAC dual meet for the first time since the current seniors were freshmen. The Vikings won in each of the past two seasons, including by a lopsided margin a year ago.
“They were at their all-time best when we were at our all-time worst and it was a rough two years, but we pushed through and this was our reward,” Trojans senior Wolfe Lutterman said.
Chesterton coach Jenni Kellstrom, proud that all the hard work in the pool paid off in a victory, also offered a word of caution.
“I think it’s exciting, especially for our seniors, but they should not count Valpo out,” Kellstrom said. “They were down one of their top swimmers today, Jake Schroeder, and he’s a phenomenal swimmer. Great kid. And when you’re down an athlete because they’re out sick, it’s just tough.”
Fueled by the close victory the medley relay team of freshman Aadin Guzzo, Lutterman, freshman Patrick Mulchay and sophomore Nathan Fernandez furnished, the Chesterton partisans for a meet that brought out big numbers from both schools, stayed in a good mood all night, even if a bit on edge. With so many closely contested events, the tension never left the air until the announcement of the final score.
“They crushed it,” Chesterton coach Jenni Kellstrom said of Guzzo (backstroke), Lutterman (breaststroke), Mulchay (butterfly) and Fernandez (freestyle) and of the team in general. “Four incredible kids. All four of them. They’re going to give you 100% every practice and you’re just really happy with that.”
Said Lutterman: “This is a very underclassman relay compared to the other ones. Aadin and Patrick are both freshmen and Nathan’s a sophomore, so this is a very young relay. For Patrick and Aadin, this is an amazing thing for them to get to win this relay in their first meet against Valpo is an amazing thing.”
Mulchay didn’t dispute a word of that.
“Tonight was just magical. I felt like we were riding in on a really good vibe that we had,” Mulchay said.
“We felt really good about this meet. We felt that we were going to do it, we were going to beat them, and then we came here to do that and we did that. So, this medley relay and this meet entirely we showed who we are as a team. It was amazing. It was magical. It was something else.”
Guzzo took up swimming in sixth grade and started swimming the backstroke because, he said, he wanted to be just like brother Aaron, a standout junior for the Trojans.
“I’ve always been two levels behind him and when he was in high school that really pushed me,” Aadin said. “He was the reason I started swimming in the first place so he’s always been a big inspiration for me.”
Lutterman can relate. His brother Vlad is a sophomore on the team.
Fernandez was happy he whipped himself into swimming shape in time for the Valpo meet. A cross country runner, he said he did not get in the pool until the first day of tryouts.
“That kind of messed me up, so I started out on JV,” he said. “I had no endurance in swim, at all. I slowly built my endurance back up in about two weeks. I got my speed back up and now I’m getting PRs. I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen if I keep building up my endurance and I can’t wait for sectionals to see if I can get at least 22 at sectionals.”
Wind plays a part in both sports but they have more differences than they have in common, according to Fernandez.
“It’s a completely different thing,” Fernandez said. “When you get in the water you use completely different muscles compared to running. Even if you miss a week or two you lose that endurance so much faster. You have to keep training every day at least once a day.”
Lutterman’s breaststroke split of 29.20 was the key to the relay because he erased the deficit he inherited, gave the team a 0.6 second lead and swam 1.83 seconds faster than the Valpo swimmer.
“There was a lot of pressure and that got me hyped to begin with and then we all did amazing,” Lutterman said. “Especially early in the year and not in a tech suit that was one of the best breaststrokes I’ve ever done. I saw on the block that we were slightly behind because Valpo’s backstroker is slightly faster so I knew I had to catch up, so that pushed me to get that even faster time.”
The Trojans only won three events, but had enough second-and-third-place finishes to edge the Vikings.
For example, Chesterton does not have swimmer of the caliber of Valpo's Joey Rojek, but the 200 individual relay results showed how the Trojans were able to compensate. Rojek won by more than five seconds and the next three swimmers to touch the wall were Trojans: Liam Eschbach, Vlad Lutterman and Aadin Guzzo.
Diver Luke Hawkins was the first Chesterton athlete to finish first in an individual event, soaring so high it begged the question as to how much new ceiling tiles might cost, and staying tight on his way to a 239.35 score.
Greydon Pieroni, second-place finisher in a close 200-yard freestyle race, won the 100 butterfly.
Kellstrom was pleased that this early in the season, the young swimmers were able to see the value of training intensely: “They dropped a lot of lifetime best times today and we have a a couple of boys who really didn’t start the season until the beginning of November, right when the official season started because they came from other sports and they’re dropping time every single meet, faster, faster, and they’re training like maniacs.”