Pool of candidates

One season of prep sports down.

Two to go.

With the prep football championships decided, the focus shifts onto winter sports.

And in swimming, the intriguing stories are beginning to emerge.

Utah's two-most successful coaches over the last decade (Skyline's Rod Horton and Judge's Gail Meakins) both moved on to other things over the summer, but it remains unclear how much of an impact those moves will have on the prep swimming scene.

It's highly unlikely that anyone from 5A can touch either of Skyline's teams, but Judge's boys team is already under assault. Though it's the three-time defending champion, coach Matt Finnigan is trying to rebuild a team that lost eight seniors to graduation. For this season, at least, don't expect anyone from 3A to challenge Judge's deep girls team.

Then there's 4A. This classification lost both of its champions (Logan boys and Lone Peak girls) to realignment. Longtime Murray coach Larry Swim, who's won a host of championships over his long career, may be in position to hoist his first state title since 2000.

The Spartans are favorites on the boys side, while junior Sara Jayne Christiansen and her East Leopards are the favorite on the girls side.

Here's a classification-by-classification look at prep swimming:

CLASS 5A: OK, so Horton has left Skyline to become an administrator at Taylorsville. That's about the only thing that feels different about the Eagles' swimming team this season.

Deep and talented, it appears virtually impossible anybody can catch them.

Coach Joe Pereira, who took over for Horton, doesn't think that's the case on the boys side. He argues that his boys team simply doesn't have the dominant swimmers that Skyline's had over the past few seasons.

"There's no one way up there," said Pereira, who left Cyprus to take over for Horton.

When you consider the Eagles have more depth than the other three boys contenders (Kearns, Brighton and Bingham) and that Skyline assistant coach Matt Vicario helps his swimmers seemingly drop big times at the state meets every year, it's still extremely difficult to see the Eagles not winning the boys title comfortably.

Nate Swallow (200-yard individual medley, 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle), Tom Ekstrom (200 freestyle), Andrew Zhang (100 butterfly) and freshman Brian Coburn (500 freestyle and 100 backstroke) all help pace the Eagles.

Todd Bradley (200 IM and 100 backstroke), Adam Huff (sprinting events) and Isaac McElhaney (100 breaststroke) lead Kearns' boys side.

After finishing sixth last year, Brighton's boys team looks to return near the top of 5A.