A DeMatha-Gonzaga meet at Georgetown Prep in 2007. (Preston Keres/The Washington Post)

Dual meets often are viewed as merely building blocks early in the season for the championship meets that come later. But for DeMatha — which opened the season with dominant performances in four consecutive wins — two dual meets this week will serve as a gauge of how the Stags stack up for the Washington Metro Prep School Swim and Dive League and Metros championships later this year.

On Friday night, DeMatha will face rival Gonzaga in a dual meet. The Stags lost to Georgetown Prep — the defending Metros champion and a favorite to repeat this year — on Tuesday, 99-87, but DeMatha Coach Tom Krawczewicz said the meets would not be as much about the results as the lessons his team could take from the competitions.

DeMatha on Tuesday night took on defending Metros champions Georgetown Prep, a favorite to repeat this year, and on Friday night will face rival Gonzaga in another dual. The Stags fell to the Little Hoyas, 99-87, on Tuesday, but DeMatha Coach Tom Krawczewicz said the meets would not be as much about the results as the lessons his team could take from the competitions.

The results will provide valuable insight into where DeMatha must improve ahead of the bigger meets, Krawczewicz said.

“You’re going to have strong competition, great swimmers in every single event and hopefully it’s one of those deals where if you win, you don’t want to be overconfident, if you lose you don’t want to be disheartened,” Krawczewicz said. “We could beat a team in dual or they could beat us and it could go the other way in the championship meets, it depends on what you put up there. We’ll see how it goes and we’ll talk about what we need to do and where we need to improve in order to compete in those championship meets.”

Through the first four meets of the year, a deep roster featuring strong swimmers in nearly every class led DeMatha to overwhelming wins; the Stags’ closest result was a 20-point victory over Bishop McNamara. Krawczewicz said the wins were due in part to a senior class that knows what it takes to compete and is helping the underclassmen learn on the fly.

Senior John Kundrat is expected to be one of DeMatha’s highest scorers this season, as well as seniors Eric Brothman and Paul Trigonoplos — though Krawczewicz said he also has several strong underclassmen.

Kundrat turned in a strong performance against Georgetown Prep on Tuesday, edging out All-Met senior Matt Thomas in the 100- and 200-yard freestyles.

“We are probably deeper than I expected,” Krawczewicz said. “I didn’t know if we were going to have superstars [that] we knew would win events at Metros and [WMPSSDL] champs, but we have guys that can score high for us in almost every event. We go three [to] four deep in almost every event. You never know going in, but I hope to be competing for the top spot in all those meets.”

Tags: Matt Thomas

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