LEXINGTON — Winning the Ohio Cardinal Conference championship was nice, but Lexington has bigger fish to fry.
The Minutemen are seeking their eighth straight team championship at this week’s Northwest District swimming and diving tournament at Bowling Green State University.
The event begins Tuesday with the Division I boys and girls diving competitions.
Lex stunned Wooster at last month’s OCC meet, but senior breaststroke ace Trey Nickoli was more concerned about the end of the season.
“I’d rather have a chance at being a district champion or even a state champion than being a conference champion,” Nickoli said at the time.
If all goes according to plan, Nickoli will get his chance to reach the top of both the district and state podiums.
He placed third at last year’s Division II state meet in the 100-yard breaststroke — graduated teammate Ivan Prykhodko won the state title last year — and takes the top time into the swimming portion of the district meet Thursday afternoon.
“We’ve got a target on our back because we’ve been a pretty successful team and we lost a lot of people from last year,” Nickoli said. “People think we’re vulnerable.
“We’ll work hard and see where the work takes us at the end of the year.”
That’s the goal, Lexington coach Melisa Watters said.
“We don’t put a lot of emphasis on the conference meet,” Watters said last month. “We don’t wear racing suits or caps (at the OCC meet). We design our training to peak at the end of the year.”
The top two finishers in each event at last week’s sectional meets automatically qualified to the district, with at-large bids based on time filling out the field in each event.
The top 32 times in individual events and top 24 relay times advanced to the district.
District qualifiers can be found here.