LANCASTER, PA – The Andover Boys’ Swimming & Diving Team traveled to the Eastern Championships this weekend for a two-day event. Historically, Easterns is the most prestigious high school swimming and diving meet in the United States, and Andover has been fortunate to perform well there over the last decade, winning four of the last five championships. This year’s meet included 31 teams.


After a season of illness and injury—including the loss of Oliver Stabach ’26 for the meet—Andover approached Easterns knowing that it had to start the meet strong in the Friday morning preliminaries. And the team met the challenge. With 25 best times, a non-scoring “B” relay that would have placed 8th overall in the competition, and many remarkable performances, Andover positioned itself well for the evening finals.


The highlights of Friday’s morning session included Raphael Sibuet’s ’24 200 Freestyle, in which he swam 1:36.44, which broke the Eastern record set in 2013 as well as the New England, School, and Pool records, all previously held by Andover’s Max Hunger ’20. Raphael’s time would have been 12th in the United States last year among all high-school swimmers, attending both public and independent schools. Another highlight was Pippin Kantakom’s ’25 1:48.72 in the 200 Individual Medley, which broke Sam Donchi’s ’20 School Record of 1:49.34 as well as Neil Simpson’s ’19 11th-grade Record. In the evening finals, Pippin lowered his own records to 1:48.08, which would have placed 31st in the nation last year.


Friday’s finals saw a repeat of great performances with most people swimming even faster than they had in the morning. One highlight of Friday evening was Andrew Kim’s ’24 2nd-place finish in the 100 Fly; because of injury, Easterns was Andrew’s only third meet since August. At the end of Friday’s finals, the 200 Freestyle Relay team of Sibuet, Kantakom, Jay Wei ’27, and Ben Zhou ’25 won the event only to be disqualified. With the victory, Andover would have entered Saturday with a 106-point lead, but with the disqualification, Andover entered Saturday with only a 42-point buffer over Haverford. Because Haverford entered four divers who would perform on Saturday, including the defending champion, while Andover had no divers, Andover knew the 42-point lead was not enough and knew that the Saturday morning preliminaries would demand its absolute best.


On Saturday morning, February 16th, Andover put together its single best swimming session in at least 20 years, with all 15 swimmers qualifying for the evening’s top 24 scoring finals—Andover’s first time achieving this feat since it used to send only 5 or 6 swimmers to Easterns in the 1970s. The morning began with Kim, Wei, Ashton Ma ’24, and Zhou all getting best times in the 100 Freestyle. In the following event, the 500 Freestyle, again, all four Andover swimmers achieved a best time with Sibuet again breaking one of Max Hunger’s School Records with a 4:24.74. This time would have tied for 17th nationally last year. During the 100 Backstroke, Wei broke Oliver Feng’s ‘25 9th-grade record with a 52.56, and all swimmers had best times. And in the 100 Breaststroke, Daniel Seong ’25 had the fastest time, and three seniors—Andrew Chinn, Sam Lee, and Andrew Zhou—each positioned themselves to score valuable points in the evening.


Saturday evening’s session saw Andover lose its lead following the diving session, but then spend the evening gaining points and securing a victory. Again, many were even faster in the finals, and a clear highlight was Sibuet and Kantakom placing first and second in the 500 Freestyle. As the winner of the 500, Sibuet received the Fran Crippen Memorial Award, and historians of swimming know the significance of placing 1-2 at Easterns in the 500. By the end of the evening, each Andover swimmer had scored points for the team, and Andover solidified its presence on the national stage of high-school swimming.


Team Scores

599 Andover
480 Haverford
450 Germantown
430.5 Mercersburg
404.5 Exeter
399 Brunswick
327 Deerfield
299 Malvern Prep
241 Episcopal
213 Lawrenceville

# Personal Best

^ All-Time Andover Ranking

200 Medley Relay

Oliver Feng ’25 (23.72) #
Daniel Seong ’25 (25.83) #
Andrew Kim ’24 (21.97) #
Ben Zhou ’25 (21.23) #
1:32.75 / 4th Place
ALL AMERICAN
^ 8th All Time

Prelims:
Woori Lee ’26 (24.41) #
Sam Lee ’24 (26.53) #
Andrew Kim ’24 (22.23) #
Oliver Feng ’25 (20.62) #
1:33.79

Ethan Zhu ’26 (25.20) #
Daniel Seong ’25 (26.14) #
Ashton Ma ’24 (23.30) #
Ben Zhou ’25 (21.41) #
1:36.05


200 Freestyle

Raphael Sibuet ’24
1:37.05 / 1st Place
1:36.44 Prelims #
ALL AMERICAN
EASTERN, NEW ENGLAND, POOL, SCHOOL RECORDS

Daniel Seong ‘25
1:44.71 / 13th Place
1:43.88 Prelims #
^ 20th All Time

Eric Nie ‘26
1:45.67 # / 18th Place

Haoyu Zhang ‘27
1:49.53 # / 31st


200 Individual Medley

Pippin Kantakom ‘25
1:48.08 # / 4th Place
ALL AMERICAN
SCHOOL & UPPER RECORDS

Sam Lee ‘24
1:55.23 # / 7th Place
^ 12th All Time

Woori Lee ‘26
1:55.80 / 8th Place
1:53.60 Prelims #
^ 8th All Time

Andrew Zhou ‘24
2:02.94 # / 20th Place


50 Freestyle

Oliver Feng ‘25
20.92 # / 5th Place
^ 8th All Tim

Ben Zhou ‘25
21.72 # / 14th Place
^ 17th All Time

Andrew Chinn ‘24
24.41 # / 84th Place

100 Butterfly

Andrew Kim ‘24
48.51 # / 2nd Place
ALL AMERICAN
^ 3rd All Time

Ethan Zhu ‘26
51.10 # / 9th Place
^ 12th All Time

Ashton Ma ‘24
51.40 / 10th Place
51.28 Prelims

200 Freestyle Relay

Raphael Sibuet ’24 (20.45) # ^ 2nd All Time
Jay Wei ’27 (20.98)
Pippin Kantakom ’25 (20.96)
Ben Zhou ’25 (21.12) #
Disqualified

Prelims:
Raphael Sibuet ’24 (20.85)
Jay Wei ’27 (20.76) #
Pippin Kantakom ’25 (21.49) #
Ben Zhou ’25 (21.37)
1:24.47
ALL AMERICAN
^ 4th All Time

Ethan Zhu ’26 (22.38)
Daniel Seong ’25 (22.32) #
Andrew Chinn ’24 (24.06) #
Andrew Zhou ’24 (23.99) #
1:32.75

100 Freestyle

Andrew Kim ‘24
46.06 # / 5th Place
^ 9th All Time

Jay Wei ‘27
47.32 # / 11th

Ben Zhou ‘25
48.12 / 16th Place
47.51 Prelims #

Ashton Ma ‘24
47.31 # / 17th Place

500 Freestyle

Raphael Sibuet ‘24
4:30.71 / 1st Place
4:24.74 Prelims #
ALL AMERICAN
SCHOOL RECORD

Pippin Kantakom ‘25
4:31.80 # / 2nd Place
^ 5th All Time

Eric Nie ‘26
4:45.11# / 13th Place
^ 15th All Time

Haoyu Zhang ‘27
5:05.40 / 24th Place
4:56.80 Prelims #

100 Backstroke

Oliver Feng ‘25
52.01 / 8th Place
51.05 Prelims #
^ 5th All Time

Jay Wei ‘27
52.68 / 12th Place
52.56 Prelims #
JUNIOR RECORD
^ 13th All Time

Woori Lee ‘26
53:05 / 13th Place
52.15 Prelims #
^ 12th All Time

Ethan Zhu ‘26
53.37 / 15th Place
53.07 Prelims #
^ 14th All Time

100 Breaststroke

Daniel Seong ‘25
56.32 # / 2nd Place
^ 5th All Time

Sam Lee ‘24
58.58 / 7th Place
58.20 Prelims

Andrew Chinn ‘24
1:01.70 / 20th Place
1:01.61 Prelims #

Andrew Zhou ‘24
1:02.11 / 21st Place
1:02.01 Prelims #

400 Freestyle Relay

Raphael Sibuet ’24 (45.38) # ^ 5th All Time
Pippin Kantakom ’25 (46.55)
Andrew Kim ’24 (46.10)
Oliver Feng ’25 (45.82) #
3:03.85 / 2nd Place
ALL AMERICAN
^ 5th All Time

Prelims
Oliver Feng ’25 (46.36) # ^ 11th All Time
Andrew Kim ’24 (46.55)
Jay Wei ’27 (47.31) #
Raphael Sibuet ’24 (44.85) #
3:05.07

Pippin Kanatakom ’25 (46.25) #
Ashton Ma ’24 (48.45)
Haoyu Zhang ’27 (50.55) #
Woori Lee ’26 (48.81) #
3:14.06