For Varsity swimmers Max Alander and Billy Fries, giving up a year of high school swimming is a risk they are willing to take.

Alander and Fries, juniors, have decided not to swim for KHS this season in order to improve their times in specific races.

“In high school you don’t swim anything more than a 500-yard race, and my primary races are the 1,000 yard and mile races,” Fries said. Instead of swimming with KHS, Fries will be swimming with Flyers Aquatic Swim Team (F.A.S.T.), a year round club team in St. Louis. He will be training in the 1,000 yard and the mile in order to attain a junior national cut, a cut for the fastest swimmers in the nation under the age of 18.

For Alander, the issue is more the level of competition. Alander swims for F.A.S.T. as well, but is a mid-distance swimmer.

“Unfortunately, I can’t achieve the goals I want to achieve in the environment high school swimming has,” Alander said. “It’s a shame because I love it and I love doing it, but it’s just not as competitive as club swimming.”

While Alander and Fries wish they could be on both teams this fall, they had to tell their KHS teammates they would not be swimming with them.

“There were a lot of unhappy people,” Fries said. “It’s disappointing to the team that we won’t be returning this year.”

Although many members of the team were frustrated, Fries did receive support from Brett Sherman, co-captain.

“If I was in their shoes, I would have made the same decision,” Sherman said. “I’d just like to say that they are still really good teammates and we’re happy to see them around.”

Having the two on the team would have helped their chances, but Matt Beasley, the new swimming coach, believes the team will do well.

“Obviously, they’re some of the faster guys that would have been on the team, but we still have a good, competitive team, and we’ll be fine without them,” Beasley said.

When their senior year comes around, however, both swimmers have expressed interest in coming back.

“It was a really tough decision to not come back this year,” Alander said. “But I will be back for sure my senior year.”