In football, fans often talk about a team having thunder and lightning in the backfield. In the swimming pool, Mt. Lebanon coach Dave Schraven has pretty much the equivalent.

He has senior sprinter, Sho Sugimoto and junior long-distance swimmer, John Nappi.

Both helped Mt. Lebanon to a second-place, Class-AAA finish at the WPIAL championships last season and will be the driving force for the Blue Devils boys' team this season.

"Sho is an outstanding swimmer," Schraven said. "He is very powerful, very strong, and he has an outstanding start. Sho has more of a specialization in the shorter events."

Schraven said Nappi was "probably our best all-around swimmer."

"He is more of a distance swimmer and the measure of an all-around swimmer is the individual medley, and John is making a lot of progress in that race," Schraven added. "He is becoming skilled in all of the strokes."

Last year at the WPIAL championships, Sugimoto finished second in the 50-yard freestyle and won the 100 freestyle. It was the second consecutive WPIAL title for Sugimoto in the 100 freestyle.

In the longer freestyle events, Nappi was the top finisher for Mt. Lebanon, taking fifth place in the 200 freestyle and fourth place in the 500 freestyle.

Sugimoto and Nappi were part of a 200 freestyle relay team that finished fifth at last year's WPIAL championships.

Mt. Lebanon has another impact swimmer in senior Sam Wilshire, who teammed with Sugimoto and Nappi on the 400 freestyle relay that placed second at the WPIAL championships.

"When we face any opponent between [Sugimoto and Nappi] and Sam, we can cover any six events in the meet," Schraven said.

Next year Sugimoto will continue his swimming career at the University of Pittsburgh. Born in Japan, Sugimoto moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. He got his green card this spring and his father, who is living in the United States, is working on a long-term plan to keep his son in this country.

When he first came to the United States five years ago, he was considered a phenomenon. He was one of the biggest kids in the pool when he first arrived, and some of his recorded times placed him among the top-ranked swimmers in the country for his age group.

But his peers caught up and Sugimoto leveled out some, his coach said.

"He wasn't improving very much in the past couple years," Schraven said. "But now in the past couple years he has kind of reemerged. The source of his improvement is his attitude and his desire to get better."

Even during a down year in his sophomore season, Sugimoto won the 100 freestyle, but there was room for improvement. When he won last year, he shaved two seconds off his time.

"That is a pretty dramatic jump for an elite swimmer to drop that amount of time in a sprint race like that," Schraven said.

Mt. Lebanon's next meet is a three-team competition against Seneca Valley and Erie McDowell at Seneca Valley.

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