GARDNER Once upon a time, like Poseidon, the Wildcats ruled the seas during the winter swim season.

Beginning in 1947 through 2010, Gardner High boys and girls teams combined to win an incredible 31 state championships.

Interestingly, as one looks back, the dynastic dominance became, well, almost expected.

In fact, the late John Tinker, who coached the GHS boys swim team for 29 years and led the Wildcats to 14 of those state titles, felt the need in an interview in 1997 to explain what happened in the 1955 state championship meet.

We tied Springfield Tech for the title, said Tinker. We had a kid sick.

In sickness and health, though, after Tinker, the successful Gardner High swim story sailed on through the years under the late boys coach Dave Phillips, whose team won the 1980 state and New England titles, and under girls coach Don Lemieux, whose teams won 16 state championships, including 15 straight from 1994 to 2008 and another in 2010.

Since then, for nearly a full decade, reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzgeralds famous Great Gatsby ending: like boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, the Wildcats have bravely splashed on with little success.

Of course, no one should expect a return to the glory days mostly achieved in the Greenwood Memorial Pool, now decaying in a crumbling building, possibly to be demolished soon.

But, as we sit in the winter of 2020, heres some encouraging Gardner High swim news.

As the girls team prepares for the league meet on Thursday at Tantasqua Regional, they have won two meets against Shrewsbury and AMSA and have tied Grafton. Plus, the Wildcats narrowly lost to Nashoba, 86-83.

Coach Lisa Arsenault, based on records she has found, said that before this season, the GHS girls had not won a dual meet in five years. And the Wildcat boys, with only four swimmers, captured their first win for the first time in four years.

Senior Kiley Young in the 100-yard backstroke and 200 individual medley and sophomore Emily Murphy in the 50 and 100 freestyle, have qualified for the girls' state individual championship at Boston University next month.

I hoping this year to place in the states in the 100 backstroke, said Young, who has a personal best time of one minute and 3 seconds in that event.

For Murphy, like Young a student at Oakmont Regional which co-ops with Gardner, this is her first year of high school swimming. She has been a longtime competitor in USA swim events.

Im really looking forward to the leagues, sectionals and states, she said.

Joining Young and Murphy in the state 200 IM relay will be freshman Ani Seppelin and sophomore Emma Dunn, both also from Oakmont.

Winning feels so good this year, said Young, a four-year starter. Now we have the numbers to compete well and actually win.

Added coach Arsenault, Its been a very positive season with many girls and boys close to qualifying for additional events. And now were hoping to swim our best in the upcoming league and sectional meets.

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Against a tidal wave of success in the past, Wildcat swimmers splash ahead - The Gardner News