Great Neck South's Justin Whang states his case as best

Even without a state championship meet, Justin Whang had his eyes set on setting the top times in New York.

The Great Neck South senior boys swimmer won the 200-yard individual medley and placed fourth in the 100 backstroke at last season’s state championships. With the majority of schools posting their results on a sharing website, Whang was able to see the marks he’d need for the top time in the state.

Whang accomplished just that at the Nassau boys swimming championships Saturday afternoon at the Nassau Aquatic Center. He won the 200 individual medley in 1 minute, 51.40 seconds and 100 backstroke in 51.15 seconds. Both of those times would be top in the state this season for each event, according to results on swimdata.info.

"I wanted to have the top time in the state in both of those," said Whang, who will swim for Yale next year. "I chose events I would have a good chance for first, so that was definitely a goal outside of winning the county meet."

But he did say it feels different without there being an official state championship meet because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Obviously it’s a lot less exciting because I’m not able to see the other swimmers I’m racing," Whang said. "But it still feels pretty good just having the best time in the state."

Griffen Schimmel, a senior at Long Beach, won the 200 freestyle in 1:42.84 and 500 freestyle in 4:36.36. He placed second in those two races last year and said he trained hard to improve his times and win.

SEE PHOTOSPhotos: Nassau boys swimming championships

"It feels good to be training for six years — since a seventh-grader — and be able to show, ‘Yeah, I’m a senior now and I’m at the top of my league, I’m winning events,’" said Schimmel, who will swim at Bryant University. "And hopefully have that trickle down to the younger kids and have that be their inspiration to get up and into the pool every day."

Great Neck South’s Thomas Huh won the 50 freestyle (22.23), South Side/Lynbrook’s Nicholas Rhodes won the 100 butterfly (51.36), Levittown/East Meadow’s Ethan Miao won the 100 freestyle (47.86) and Plainview-Old Bethpage JFK’s Matthew Chang won the 100 breaststroke in 57.63.

Syosset won all three relays and the team title with 550.5 points. Long Beach and Port Washington/Roslyn rounded out the top three with 407.5 and 331, respectively. It was Syosset's third straight team title.

"We really left it all in the pool today," said Syosset senior Michael Lu, who was a part of the winning 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relay teams. "For the seniors, we knew it was going to be the last time we swam varsity and we wanted to leave everything in the pool for the team and the coaches and everybody that has worked so hard to get us to this point."