Milford swimmer pulled off perfect run at Hockomock final

By Chris Villani

Ethan Fiedler is not afraid to admit that his success in this year’s Hockomock League swimming championships caught even him a little bit by surprise. The Milford High senior was not picked to win any events, based on the pre-meet seeding; but he rattled off a perfect four-for-four run, finishing his final season with four Hockomock gold medals.

“It was awesome,” Fiedler said. “It was exactly how I wanted to end my career. I could not have wanted it to end any other way.”

Fiedler said he used his underdog status as motivation.

“That really drove me to really just leave everything I had in the pool,” he said. “It was my last championship meet, and I really wanted to put everything I had into it.”

Adding to the impressiveness of Fiedler’s accomplishment is the fact that he did not swim what had been his primary event heading into this year.

“I was a breaststroker, but I ended up hurting my knee, and I couldn’t do it going into this season,” he said. “A couple of weeks before the season, I didn’t think I was going to be able to swim. I was going through physical therapy for my knee and it caused me to have to switch up what I was doing and swim the backstroke.”

Fiedler won the 100-meter backstroke at the Hockomock meet. He also took first in the 50-meter freestyle and was a member of the Scarlet Hawks’ first-place medley and 400 meter freestyle relay teams. 

MHS finished second in the league meet following a regular season in which the team won all of its dual meets. Fiedler noted that the team did well despite losing several talented swimmers to graduation last year.

“I wasn’t going into the season with the highest of hopes, but I saw how our first couple of practices were going and I could see we were going to do something really great this season,” he said.

Fiedler has also competed in swimming at the club level. He said his mother suggested he try the sport when he was 11 years old. At first, it was not his favorite activity; but, when he was offered a spot on the Milford High team as an eighth grader, his feelings about swimming changed forever.

“It opened up a whole new world of opportunities,” Fiedler said. “It made me fall in love with the sport.”