After finishing a season that ended in the state meet, Eastside’s boys relay team had a lot to look back on.

The team of Tucker Rowe, Cooper Stokes, Jack Hays and Bryson Strickland produced season-best times when the team needed it the most.

While the team may not have secured a state title, the ability to secure one of the few spots at the state meet was a success for the team.

“It felt very exciting to get a spot in the state meet,” Rowe said. “I was very proud of my team’s hard work and I was happy to see their dedication paid off.”

Rowe, who is the team captain, served as the first leg of the relay. 

With four swimmers in the mix, head coach DeAnna O'Brien discussed the difficulties of the event and what it takes to succeed.

“The precision — the transitions, the coming into the wall and taking off at the wall,” O’Brien said. “When you are swimming at state, that's an olympic pool so the timing system shows the exact times that the people leave the block. Their ability to trust the person in the water, coming into the wall and that they are not going to stall [and] that they are going to go full speed into the wall. You are not waiting to see them touch the wall, you are waiting to know when your brain knows they touched the wall so you just have to be ready to go because you can't see it.”

This sentiment was shared by Rowe, who hoped to set the tone for the other three swimmers behind him.

“It’s pretty challenging to do well in a four person relay because everyone has to be in sync and there is no room for error,” Rowe said. “If one person makes a mistake the whole relay pays for it. I would say the separating factor from teams that make it versus the teams that don’t is the chemistry between each player. The better the friendship and the more you know each other the better chances of success.”

Assistant coach Lee Jourdan noted how the team pushed the limit in order to be best prepared for the final.

“We put a big challenge in front of them,” Jourdan said. “They had a lot of time that they had to drop and each person had to drop half a second, which is nearly insurmountable. We put that in their mind that, ‘You can do it, you can do it.’ We went to the University of Georgia and we were racing against really good swimmers, and that really pushed them. They met that qualifying time and they were amazed [and] so were we.”

Even when the team made it to the state meet, the tests continued to come.

“We challenged them again when they got to state because the top 20 made the finals and that was the next step,” Jourdan said. “‘OK, we are here. We can go home on day one or we can qualify for the finals.’ They swam really well and qualified for finals. In the finals, they set the fastest time of the season [for Eastside].”

For Cooper Stokes, who served as the second leg, the execution of a quality relay starts long before the day of the meet.

“It is really hard to have four guys locked in that understanding," Stokes said. “You are going one after the other so you have to be zoned in. You have to see everything and visualize it even before the race. It takes a lot of tremendous work and time in practice.”

After Stokes, the lane was then handed over to Jack Hays.

Hays was one of two seniors on the team, and he noted how he planned to leave it all in the pool for his final run.

“I was very proud of what we were able to do,” Hays said. “Going into senior year, I was a bit worried if we were going to make state or not, but everyone on the team focused on this year and I was really proud that we were able to make it to the state meet.”

Although the nerves were there, Stokes felt right at home once he entered the water.

“I was pretty nervous because you don't want to mess up and get disqualified,” Hays said. “That would be a terrible way to end the season. When I was on the block I was nervous but once I dived in I felt fine. I was comfortable.”

As Stokes finished his leg of the relay, Bryson Strickland stood on the block as the fourth and final man for the Eagles.

Strickland, who is another senior, emphasized the importance of making almost zero mistakes in an event such as the 4x200 relay.

“Especially with our event, the 200, for it to be competitive fast, everything has to be perfect,” Strickland said. “The guy starting, the transitions have to be perfect and everyone’s turn — which is very hard to do.”

Along with the relay, Strickland had the chance to qualify as an individual as well. This meant O’Brien had to make a few changes to the order for the relay — a move the rest of the team fully supported.

“His teammates cared enough about him to give him every opportunity to qualify individually," O’Brien said. “They did not mind that we switched the order to give him extra time to swim. We went there, the team sacrificed to go there for Bryson so we could swim him twice in the first leg.”

“They understand what it means to be a part of a team. They are not in it just to win, they are in it to make sure that everybody gets to their fullest potential.”

In what proved to be Strickland’s final event with the team, he comfortably felt that he left his best for last when it came to the relay.

“[I was] just pushing myself farther than I ever have before,” Strickland said. “That's the fastest I've ever swam in my life.”

While only four Eastside swimmers competed in the state meet, the program was well represented.

Along with cheering the team on, the other members of the Eagles’ swim team made sure to give the four guys all the room they needed to maximize practice time.

“They were all extremely excited for this team,” O’Brien said. “They understood that they were willing to sacrifice an entire lane [to the relay team]. ‘This is their lane, we are going to let them work because we want them to be successful.’ We wanted them to represent our whole team at state.”

Eastside has signed swimmers to the next level on multiple occasions in the past, and O’Brien is in full belief that the four can follow suit.

“All four of them can swim collegiately, no doubt,” O’Brien said. 

For Stokes and Rowe, their Eastside careers will continue into 2027. Following a quality year in the pool that ended in the state meet, O’Brien believes the two can return to the same spot next year.

“I think both of the swimmers coming back can qualify as individuals,” O’Brien said. “I think if they keep working over the summer and put in as much work as they did this eason and into next season; they can qualify individually. We didn't have an influx of men coming in as freshman or sophomores.”