POULSBO – The district’s boys swim teams spent Tuesday afternoon busting out season best times during their home competition against Port Angeles.

Last swim season the Vikings and Buccaneers swam as one united force, whereas this year the schools boast separate teams, but still attend and host competitions in double dual style.

Although PA’s Rough Riders defeated North, 111-77 and Kingston, 138-36, both home teams pillaged the waters in impressive and personal record fashion.

As the boys hit the lanes for the 50- and 100-yard freestyle sprint races the waters began to shake and thunder with the punch of a storm hitting the Pacific coast.

With every rapid stroke forward the pool quivered with the swimmers’ power, a power that matched the shouts of encouragement from the teammates on land.

The North Kitsap pool was loud on Tuesday afternoon, and perhaps the enthusiasm from the swimmers and fans helped spur the Vikings to 17 personal best performances and the Buccaneers to a handful of personal best times.

“We’re not talking small time improvements, we’re talking three-, five-, six-second improvements,” Vikings head coach Greg Braun said Wednesday afternoon as he flipped through the Vikings competition time sheet. “They’re still at a point where they’re learning in leaps and bounds and getting better technique and it’s paying off in huge dividends. One to two seconds, that’s huge improvement.”

The Bucs’ Andrew Sundquist set a best time in the 50-free with 28.6 seconds, shaving 1.5 seconds off his previous best, Robbie Wright knocked out a wild improvement and swam the 50 in 32.5 and Nathan Ajax rocked the 100-breaststroke swimming it in 1 minute, 32 seconds.

Needless to say Kingston’s head coach Celia Ozereko is beyond pleased with the boys’ efforts.

“Every meet we’re getting stronger and that’s very encouraging,” she said. “We haven’t won any meets yet but by the end of the season we’ll have the capability to do that.”

Individual records aside, the district’s boys swim squads boast another classification of impressive numbers: Record high turnouts.

Last year North turned out some 20 swimmers and this year the number spiked by nearly 30 percent as 27 joined the team.

Why? Well, Michael Phelps, of course.

“It’s an Olympic year and that always gives us a bump,” Braun said. “The guys have been talking it up.”

Swimming is apparently the sport for Kingston athletes, as 39 boys turned out for the team. Of the 39 Ozereko said only seven or eight are returners.

“We have some seniors who do very good recruiting, it’s kind of exciting,” she said.

Of the two teams only a few of the members are true swimmers, several are multiple sport athletes, but they’re all eager to learn and as a result are “very coachable.”

Ozereko looks to three seniors to lead the team, Mike Colasurdo, Kingston’s utility swimmer, Sundquist, a great sprinter and Chris Nuvotney, the dark horse.

But above all, she hopes the boys develop a love for the sport during the season.

“I’d like for them to really get an appreciation of the sport and build skills they can take throughout their life,” she said. “A lot came in the first week not confident of their abilities technique-wise and we’re getting to the point where they’ll know all four strokes and it’s really encouraging.”

Braun turns to Tyler Rencher, Juan Salazar and Josh Despard to set the team’s direction in competitive excellence. The three currently swim the 50-free in the 25-second range. Braun would like to see them qualify for districts, which Salazar has already done in the 50-freestyle and 100-butterfly and Despard and Rencher are very close. North’s relay teams have already qualified for districts.

“If we can get kids to the district meet, then that’s awesome,” Braun said.