CAS Swim Team – 2024 Report

The CAS Swim Team of 33 students led by Captains Max Moylan and Axel Robinson competed at Olympic Park last night at the 93^rd CAS Swimming Championships. There was strong support from Cranbrook School with all senior school students completing the tradition of the student tunnel from Chapel Lawn to Hordern, with the band playing rocky in the background, the team was fired up by the school gathering round them to chant the school song. The support didn’t finish there with Yr 8,10 & 11 all making their way out to SOPAC to continue the support.

The team noticed the support and we set the meet off with team Co-Captain Max Moylan racing the 1^st event of the night, the Opens Division 50m Freestyle. Max, normally known for his 5km & 10km races, used the crowd to find some speed and finished 3^rd in the race with a new personal best time of 25.08, which he later went on to better in the lead off the Men’s Open Freestyle relay breaking 25 seconds for the first time in 24.98.

Next up was crowd favourite and Olympic hopeful, National Champion Marcus Da Silva, with the crowd behind him, Marcus proved once again that he is the dominate freestyle swimmer in Australia at the moment for his age, winning the Opens 50m Freestyle in a new school record time of 23.42. The good results kept coming with commendable results from Noah Kemp who finished 2^nd in a new school record time of 25.92 and from Oliver Minning, Aidan Park & Charlie Roberts all placing top 3 in 50m their freestyle race. With the Cranbrook crowd at the loudest point of the night, Ben Haddock raced the final 50m Freestyle race of the night with a new personal best time of 55 seconds and finishing 2^nd.

At the end of the 50m Freestyle races, we were sitting equal 3^rd on the point score with Barker on 94 points and Waverley 2 points behind us on 92 points. We then moved onto the Breaststroke races, which normally signals the fall for Cranbrook. However, this year, the team had been working to diversify their team by improving our form strokes.

Aidan Park 14yrs old from yr 8 stepped up, to race against the 17yrs in the 100 Breaststroke finishing 4^th before going on to come 2nd in his age group 50m race, in a time that would win any other year but except 2 previous years. Jack Charles 15yrs raced the Opens 100m Breaststroke in 1:15 time coming 4th before going on to come 3rd in his 15yrs 50m Age group. Hugo Mertens & Preston Irawan are also highly commended for their Breaststroke swims finishing in the top 3 and swim up age groups.

Cranbrook was now in 3^rd place following the breaststroke. Our strategy this year was to dominate both Waverley and Barker in the relays to secure our overall podium finish. The teams certainly put this plan into action with 4 out of 6 teams coming 3^rd and 3 of those teams breaking school records with the 14 yrs team being the fastest Cranbrook team in history by over 5 seconds. The Opens, 17yrs and 14yrs broke records:

Boys Open Medley Relay
Axel Robinson, Oscar Holland, Marcus Da Silva & Max Moylan 1:53.54
Boys 17yrs Medley Relay
Tate Sirianni, Felix Sheldrick, Robert Ingham & Matt Alexiou 1:57.38
Boys 14 yrs Medley Relay
Noah Kemp, Aidan Park, Hugo Mertens & Felix Preston 2:05.79 – by over 5 seconds

The relays proved that we have not only developed some great individual talents within the swim program, but the depth and diversity of our swim team has also improved. There was no looking back after the relays with Cranbrook 25 points clear of Barker.

We continued to have great results in the 100m Freestyle where Marcus Da Silva broke the CAS and School record in a time of 50.17, Tate Sirianni turned 4^th at the halfway mark and swam over the top of the competitors from Knox, Trinity, and Waverley to win the 17yrs in a time of 53.78. Noah Kemp finished 2^nd narrowly missing the school record and Carter McGee finished 2^nd in the 13 yrs.

In the Backstroke Tate Sirianni continued his form, taking 2 1sts places in a school record time for the 50m backstroke of 27.90 and 1^st in the 17 yrs 100m backstroke. Noah Kemp won the 14 yrs 50m backstroke missing the school record by 0.02. Co-Captain Axel Robinson got 2 3^rd places in the open 50m & 100m races and Carter McGee finished 3^rd in the 13yrs 50m backstroke.

The butterfly we held our position with Marcus Da Silva swimming outside his normal freestyle races to break 2 schools records after finishing 2^nd in the 50m and 1^st in the 100m fly and Carter McGee continued his bronze medal streak finishing 3^rd in the 13yrs 50m fly.

We finished the individual races with the 200m Freestyle, where Captain Max Moylan raced the final individual race of the night and of his CAS swimming career. He boosted the mood leading into the freestyle relays by winning the race and beating the inform and strong swimmers from Knox and Trinity. A great way for the captain to finish his time on the Cranbrook CAS Swim team.

We finished the night with Freestyle Relays, which was the backbone of our CAS swim training in 2024. We built our team culture on being able to stand up as a team and deliver in these races. We felt confident going into these races that we can hold our position on the point score and we didn’t disappoint by finishing 3^rd and 4^th in most age groups. The Men’s Open relay was the last event of the night with Captain Max Moylan leading off in a time of 24.95, the team went on to break the school record by over 2 seconds. The team finished 2^nd beating Trinity for the first time in history.

This made it 6 school records from 6 races for Marcus Da Silva and 11 new School records in total:

Marcus Da Silva
Open 50m Freestyle 23.42
Open 100m Freestyle 50.17 + CAS Record
Open 100m Butterfly 25.97
Open 100m Butterfly 57.12
Noah Kemp
14 yrs 50m Freestyle 25.92
Tate Sirianni
17 yrs 50m Backstroke 27.90
Boys Open Medley Relay
Axel Robinson, Oscar Holland, Marcus Da Silva & Max Moylan 1:53.54
Boys Open Freestyle Relay
Max Moylan, Oscar Holland, Axel Robinson & Marcus Da Silva 1:39.32
Boys 17 yrs Medley Relay
Tate Sirianni, Felix Sheldrick, Robert Ingham & Matt Alexiou 1:57.38
Boys 14 yrs Medley Relay
Noah Kemp, Aidan Park, Hugo Mertens & Preston Irawan 2:05.79

The Cranbrook CAS swim team finished 3rd place on the night, with 411 points. 82 points better than 2023 and our best finish since 1985. The final team results were: Knox 561
Trinity 533
Cranbrook 411
Barker 354.5
Waverley 331
St Aloysius 310.5

The 33 students who represented the swim should be proud of their achievement. Congratulations to our top 10 individual points scorers:

Marcus Da Silva Yr 12	35
Noah Kemp Yr 8	33
Tate Sirianni Yr 11	31
Carter McGee Yr 7	28
Ollie Minning Yr 11	23
Aidan Park Yr 8	22
Max Moylan Yr 12	21
Jack Wilkinson Yr 9	20
Axel Robinson Yr 12	14
Jack Charles Yr 9	12

The following students were automatically selected to swim at CIS Swimming Championships on the 7^th of May with the final team being announced on the 26^th of March:

Marcus Da Silva, Noah Kemp, Tate Sirianni, Carter McGee, Aidan Park, Max Moylan, Axel Robinson, Oscar Holland, Hugo Mertens and Preston Irawan.

Congratulations to the whole Cranbrook representative swim team for a fantastic job.