By Teena Burchianti
mail@floridanewsline.com
Swimming before sunrise and after sunset is a norm for the competitive swimmer. The rigorous schedule before and after school not only sets the pace in the water, but also in life as swimmers learn to prioritize in order to accomplish goals in and out of the pool.
According to scholarshipstats.com, there are more than 138,000 men swimming at the high school level in the United States, yet only 7.9 percent of them will go on to swim at the collegiate level. Challenging this trend, Coach Mark Corley of Loggerhead Aquatics will be sending three of his senior men off to swim this fall at the collegiate level: Ethan Chestang, Gabe Caldwell and Lukas Burchianti.
Chestang and Caldwell were also coached by Tracy Da Costa at Creekside High School while Burchianti was coached his first two years by Gina Aquilar and by Robert Bruns his junior and senior years at Bartram Trail High School.
Chestang will swim for Division I Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton,
Fla. while pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering with the help of Bright Futures funding. Caldwell will be traveling to Swarthmore, Penn. to study computer engineering on an academic scholarship while swimming for Division III Swarthmore College. Burchianti will be attending and swimming with Division II Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla. on an academic scholarship studying mechanical engineering.
Photo courtesy Teena Burchianti
Ethan Chestang, Gabe Caldwell and Lukas Burchianti are former Loggerhead swimmers who now swim at the college level.
