1 Awards: Feyh meeting high expectations at Glendale

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There was never any hiding for Henry Feyh. No way to be underestimated or overlooked. No backwoods path to a podium. 

Feyh was slotted as one of 14 Swimmers to Watch in the Springfield area in 2014, before his freshman varsity campaign at Glendale even began. Even more, he was the lone freshman on that list.

Now, halfway through his high school career, those early expectations are being met. Feyh carried himself to the highest level of state competition his freshman and sophomore years, finishing 12th in the 500-yard Freestyle and 14th in the 200-yard Freestyle in St. Peters last fall, and 14th and 16th, respectively, in 2014. 

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On the team level, Feyh finished first in the 500-yard Freestyle and second in the 200-yard Freestyle in last October's Southwest Missouri Swim Championships, helping his Falcons win the 17-team meet by 50 points over a strong Kickapoo group. Feyh and the Falcons finished fourth in the SWMO championship meet his freshman year. 

"My freshman year, I was the fastest guy on the team," Feyh said. "It was hard for me because people kind of looked up to me, but I was only 14 years old." 

But getting thrust into that leadership role so early hasn't shaken Feyh, who already speaks like a leader after just two years of high school. 

"We had a really good season," he said. "It was great taking a relay to state this year that we didn't take last year. My teammate, Graham Sherard, made a state cut (in the 200-yard Individual Medley) his senior year this year, and he'd never made one, so that was great. Coach Boyce really helped us to get to where we are. He encouraged us all season." 

Swim coaches and swimmers throughout the country talk about the pressure that comes with a state meet. It's a different feel. The fluidity that comes with the events of a local meet are gone. Instead of swimming your race and the meet moving on to the next, a swimmer has to sit and wait for heat after heat before and after their own. 

"There's a lot of pressure at the state meets," Feyh said. "It's a culmination of everything you train for, but I don't really get scared." 

Feyh has been in the pool for so long, his laissez-faire attitude towards the normally intimidating atmosphere of states isn't surprising. 

The rising junior was taught to swim at three years old by his aunt. Then, just three years later, a six-year-old Feyh began training at Drury University, where he still trains in the offseason. 

"No one in my family swam competitively," he said. "But my aunt had a pool, and I was over there a lot." 

That early path hasn't wavered. Feyh ran track in middle school, but he's spent the majority of his athletic life focused on the pool. 

"It's not necessarily that you don't want to do anything else. It's just that there's no time for it if you want to be good at swimming," he said. 

More often than top athletes in other high school sports, swimmers are swimmers, through and through. 

"Henry has been swimming a long time," Glendale head coach Steve Boyce said. "We'd known for a while he was going to come in pretty good. Really had a very nice freshman year. It's hard, like any sport, for a freshman boy to compete with the seniors, they're just physically not as mature. But Henry did a nice job. 

"He's on a track that's a lot of fun to watch." 

A swimmer who specializes in the 500-yard Freestyle is one of the toughest finds for a swim coach, but for Boyce, Feyh came pre-packaged with the event. 

"I got my start in long-distance when I was 12 or 13," Feyh said. "My coach at Springfield Aquatics was Bryan Beatty. He kind of helped me become the long-distance freestyler that I am. 

"You have to practice going fast for a long period of time, back to back to back in order to do the 500. I can hold my speed for a long time." 

Ignoring summer vacation and keeping his eyes forward toward ever-improving seed times, Feyh is traveling to Omaha, Neb. and the CenturyLink Center pools to swim in a test event ahead of the Olympic swim trials, scheduled to begin June 26. 

"It's a meet where they're basically making sure everything is working right for the trials," he said. "It's cool." 

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