By Kevin Cunningham
Sports Correspondent
There is a senior swimmer currently attending Whitewater High School and his name is Benny Liang. You now know his name, but if you are a great swimmer yourself, he probably knew your name a long time ago.
“He’s a student of the sport,” Whippets head swim coach Joan Domitrz said. “He pays attention to everything about the sport. He found out that two of the 16-year-olds, one a breaststroker and one a backstroker that are world-ranked will be in this [national] meet, so he’s all excited because he’ll be able to watch them swim.
“He knew everybody’s time in the events he would be swimming at the state meet for this year. He followed those guys and started following them last year. He continued following them this year to make sure he knew what they were doing,” Domitrz said. “You’re willing to do what others aren’t. Give up the social time sometimes. And most young people do not understand this. A lot of the high school kids follow him, but would most of them do the things he does? Probably not. You have to love it.”
Liang dominates the 100-yard breaststroke event. He won the state title his junior year with a time of 59.07. This past season, as a senior for the Whippets, Liang swam a 58.64, repeating as the state champion.
Even with that time though, Liang wasn’t satisfied when he figured out his split times. He said he was happy he he had repeated, but going back to his knowledge and awareness of the sport, he was aware he was trailing another swimmer in terms of overall times heading into that state meet.
Liang knew what time he most likely needed to get to in order to repeat, which can add a lot of pressure. Domitrz and Liang both talked about the pressure he faced all season, being the defending state champion, but they agreed it was the journey and determination to be the best that pushed him.
“Oh yeah, there was so much pressure,” Liang said. “I was really nervous going in. A couple weeks before the meet I found out there was a swimmer who swam a second faster than anyone else and two seconds faster than I did at sectionals.”
After the high school season had ended and Liang repeated as state champ, he then swam in the USS State Meet, a meet in which Domitrz said features the best swimmers in the state. Liang broke his defending state-winning time of 58.64 by about a second at the USS State Meet.
Despite his overall dominance in the 100-breaststroke, that isn’t the only event he performs extremely well in. In the high school state meet his senior year, Liang finished in third-place in the 100-yard butterfly, proving it isn’t just his dedication to the breaststroke that makes him so good.
He qualified for the national meet in Orlando in five different events thanks to the USS State Meet, with three coming in the breaststroke while the other two were for the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly.
At the national meet in Orlando last weekend, Liang broke his club swim team’s record time in the 50-yard breaststroke and swam close to all of his previous best times in the other events. To connect family and Whitewater ties, the head coach for his club swim team is Domitrz’s daughter.
After reflecting on his past two seasons of state-winning performances, Liang talked about when he first realized he truly was a great swimmer.
“Throughout the season [my junior year] the coaches will post what times their swimmers have gone into a forum called WISCA,” Liang said. “And I saw that my times were in the top-three, but I saw that other swimmers kept creeping up.”
Liang knew once he saw he was a top-swimmer his junior year, that he was going for the win in the 100-yard breaststroke during his first state meet. Fast forward two seasons, and three state titles came his way. He also talked about competing in relays, which feature three other swimmers competing against other teams’ top-four swimmers.
His junior year, he was part of a 200-medley relay group that won at state. Going into his senior year though, those three other swimmers he had won state with a season ago, had all graduated.
He was the leader and took it upon himself to guide an entirely different group of swimmers back to state. Liang ended up accomplishing that goal and the quartet finished in 15th-place and out-swam their initial seed time heading into the competition.
“Those three other guys my junior year were seniors and so it was really deserving for them to win that state title,” Liang said. “It was actually a big surprise because six of the past eight years McFarland had won it and coming into the meet we were seeded third behind McFarland and Shorewood, so it was really nice to win because all of our hard work had paid off.”
Domitrz talked about Liang’s leadership more in-depth, citing a vocal example during his senior season.
“Benny had a cheer he did with a banana,” Domitrz said. “We went to a few meets this year and he brought a banana. We went to a meet in Beloit and he got some guys from a couple other teams and they all gathered. He stands on this chair and he peels this banana. ‘Peel, peel, peel the banana.’ And everyone goes, ‘peel, peel, peel the banana!’ Then he goes, ‘eat, eat, eat the banana.’ He starts eating it and they chant, ‘eat, eat, eat the banana!’ The place just starts going.
“One of the J-Hawk [club team] swimmers said, ‘Wow, Benny’s really an ambassador.’ He is really well-liked. He doesn’t mind saying that he is going to do something. If he makes a statement, he will go with everything he’s got to achieve that goal.”
When asked who helped him the most as a swimmer, whether it be a parent, friend of any coach he’s had in the past, Liang said it was his teammate from a year ago, Jonathon Zimdars, who was a part of the state-winning relay team during Liang’s junior season and was a year ahead in age of Liang.
As a coach, Domitrz talked about how Zimdars consistently pushed Liang to be better.
“You can bet that Jon was coming up in the next event if he was going to swim it to try to beat Benny’s time,” Domitrz said. “And that was in everything they swam. From the 50-free to the I.M. to everything they swam, when one went a specific time, the other would try to beat it. And if you look at the record board [in Whitewater High School] it stands out.
“It’s really kind of funny to see. Jon, Benny, Benny, Jon, Jason in the backstroke, and then Benny, Jon, Benny (…) and they’re still very close. They stay in contact. It’s nice for both of them. When asked who his role model was, he said Jon. If one of my peers said that about me, I would say [laughing] that’s awesome.”
Zimdars is the first Whippet swimmer to eventually compete in the NCAA Championships collegiately. He currently is attending Kenyon College. Domitrz said walking around Kenyon’s campus as a swimmer is equivalent to walking around UW-Whitewater’s campus as a football player.
When asking both Domitrz and Liang about where the current Whippet will attend college now that his swimming season as a Whippet is over, neither would give a definitive answer.
No decision has been made yet, but whether it is staying home and becoming a Warhawk, joining Zimdars at Kenyon College or pursuing a different university, Liang has clearly left his mark in the history books of Whitewater High School swimming and will continue swimming wherever he ventures to next.
