When you walk into the pool, you’ll hear the sounds of water splashing. The sound of teammates cheering.  The coaches yelled encouragement to the swimmers in the water.  This is boys’ swimming.  “Finally our season is coming to a start, I can’t wait to shape this into a winning team with a good attitude and an even stronger desire to win it all,” said captain Kacper Piekutowski. The first meet of the season is the Demon Invite, at Maine East on December 6th. “I am excited for this meet, the first meet of the season so we have to try and show up and set the tone for the rest of the season,” said Erick Ferrer.  Leyden ends the meet in second place after a devastating second place finish against Elk Grove, the score ending 110 to 111.  “We were leading for basically the entire meet until a silly DQ and we just lost out.  It was a good meet, they swam well and I’m proud of all my swimmers,” said Coach Cook  Many of Leyden’s swimmers swam their hearts out and got new best times on many things, helping the team secure even more points towards their second place finish.  “I didn’t expect us to win the meet, however I was surprised how well we swam especially against tough skills like Elk Grove,” said Erick Ferrer.  After this year they’ll be missing 9 different seniors after this year. Marking an end to all the swimmers that brought Coach Cook’s first second place finish in conference in his coaching career.  The boys’ senior night is on January 21st, against Addison Trail.  Many of our seniors are excited to finally get their gifts after always setting it up years prior.  “I’m honestly feeling both happy and sad about my senior year.  I’ll finally be home at a normal time for most of the year once swimming finally ends, but there’s a part of me that’s still sad thinking about how little I might see all these guys after swimming ends and into college,” said Patryk Pasternak.  The boys’ season ends on February 21, 2026 at East Leyden for the second to last Leyden hosted sectional for Coach Cook.