Nothing came easy, which made the season all the more memorable. Cathedral High School boys swimming overcame a smaller-than-usual roster in 2024-2025 to register a successful season under difficult circumstances. That made for a satisfying end to Megan Ahnert’s final season as head coach. “The boys season was great,” she said. The Irish boys, competing with a team of nine total swimmers, not only finished third in the Schools with No Pools Meet in 2025, they finished a strong second to Bishop Chatard in the City Meet. They then finished fifth in the Section 14 meet at Lawrence High School with 172 points behind Franklin Central (466), Lawrence North (411), North Central (317) and Chatard (217). “We had nine boys total - not even just nine on the varsity, but nine total,” Ahnert said. “Everything we were able to do with the boys season was just incredible under those circumstances.” Added Ahnert, “They had to really want it. There's a lot on them in those situations. They just kind of showed up and did it. They really bought into that and said, ‘OK, I have to give it my all in practice because we're small, but we can be small and mighty.’ ” The small roster size meant the Irish competed in some meets with just one swimmer in a particular event. “It was wild just having that small of a team, but everyone just stepped up and still gave it their all despite the odds,” Ahnert said. “We weren’t set up to win very many meets with a team that small, but it worked out. They had great times. It was great.” The Irish’s second-place finish at the City meet came with seven swimmers. “Having those numbers and still being able to get second was awesome,” Ahnert said. “They had some really incredible races. We switched a little of what we were doing in terms of training to cater more towards our year-round swimmers. We had great opportunities for everybody to grow.” Irish boys swimming in 2024-2025 was led by the following swimmers, with sectional times in parentheses: *Junior Wyatt Field (third, 500-yard freestyle, 5:05.96; sixth, 200-yard freestyle, 1:53.18). “He pushed himself a lot in the offseason and then he really bought into what we were putting out this season, which is great,” Ahnert said. *Junior Tyler Neucks (third, 50-yard freestyle, 22.69; sixth, 100-yard butterfly, 56.24). *Senior Christopher Dravis (seventh, 200-yard individual medley, 2:13.88; eighth, 100-yard breaststroke, 1:06.24). *Senior Reece Bonhomme (ninth, 100-yard backstroke, 1:03.63; 10th, 100-yard freestyle, 52.96). *Sophomore Luke Anton (12th, 500-yard freestyle, 5:49.67). The 200-yard medley relay – freshman Andres Martinez Lezema, Anton, sophomore MarQues Cheesebourough and sophomore Max Kubacki – finished 11th in 2:14.22. The 200-yard freestyle relay – Field, Bonhomme, Dravis and Neucks – finished fourth in 1:35.72. The 400-yard freestyle relay – Field, Bonhomme, Dravis and Neucks – finished fifth in 3:32.02. Ahnert called the sectional performance “the icing on the cake” for the season, with Neucks and Field swimming the fastest times in preliminaries to secure the No. 1 seeds. “That shifted the narrative for that meet,” Ahnert said. “Instead of, ‘We’re just kind of finishing it out,’ it was, ‘We’re finishing it out and we’re finishing it out on a really great note – really strong, really positive.’ Which was great.” “Those juniors are a good group. They’re really strong both as swimmers and as just people you want on your team. They're kind of the blueprint for that.” Ahnert called the strong junior class key to a “good group” that made up the ’25 Irish. “There were some great races across the board, but it was really just a good group – small but mighty,” she said. And while Ahnert said leaving the program was a difficult decision, it was a necessary one that came at the right time – and that the program will continue to be strong. “It’s absolutely hard to leave, especially with those juniors, but there's always going to be at least one person that you're like, ‘Oh I should stay until they graduated,’’’ she said. “It’s really tough but the team deserves 100 percent of my attention and my kids deserve 100 percent of my attention. “It's hard with it all kind of happening at the same time. It was good, though. It was a good group and fun group and it's a good group to go out with.”