Forest Hills boys swim team routs Wayland, moves in on third consecutive conference title

Steve Ungrey | The Grand Rapids Press, February 17, 2011 11:08 p.m.

GRAND RAPIDS — In nearly a quarter-century of coaching, Dennis Neat has seen it all.

His Forest Hills swim teams have been in eight conference alignments over a 24-year period, yet they always seem to perform up to the challenge.

The combined Central/Eastern/Northern squad is on the verge of its fifth conference title in seven years after Thursday’s 122-61 win against Wayland at the Forest Hills Aquatic Center.

Forest Hills, ranked No. 5 in Division 1, has one more meet remaining against Ottawa Hills before it hosts the OK Rainbow Conference meet Feb. 26.

It has been another productive season for a program that has competed in a three-tier OK Rainbow alignment, the OK Red Metro/Lakeshore and others. Recent stability has been a welcome change.

“This is our third year in the current alignment of schools we’ve had,” Neat said. “I’ve learned there is nothing stable. There was a time where we realigned four times in about a decade.”

With the OK Rainbow title in sight, Neat did a little improvisation with the lineup against Wayland. Four seniors — Brandon Muma, Thomas Parlmer, Brad Klanderman and Hayden Cassidy — had not competed together much this season, so they combined in the 200 medley relay.

The four won the event in 1 minute, 46.34 seconds, just two seconds away from a Division 1 state finals cut. Klanderman is from Forest Hills Northern, and the other three are Eastern students.

“It’s nice to mix things up a bit. Usually I’m in a relay with the same four to six people, so it’s nice to see some different swimmers,” Cassidy said.

Forest Hills has defeated Rockford, Zeeland and East Grand Rapids in recent years, and the current team is undefeated in duals this season.

“Tell us where to go, and we’ll train the best we can and hopefully get a title out of this,” Neat said. “We don’t shy away from facing competition. We need to see these top teams to judge where we are overall. We had a good year and a lot of great races and personal-best times.”

Seniors such as Cassidy have enjoyed the past two conference titles, and are hoping to celebrate a third next week.

“The first year I was here we had a hard conference with schools like Zeeland in it, and that was difficult,” Cassidy said. “It’s been nice to see how the team has progressed. We’ve had one of the largest freshman classes I’ve seen (14), and I respect how hard they’ve worked. I was once a freshman and I wasn’t as good, and I worked my way up.

“We have some hard work ahead of us, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s going to be nice to swim here in conference one last time.”