Twenty-three years ago, a swimmer by the name of Patrick Hull joined with three teammates to set the Mankato East school record in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a time of 3:22.43.

This year, his son Andrew Hull, will try to break it.

“I have some very specific goals for this year and one of them is to take my dad’s name off the record board in the 400-free relay,” said Andrew Hull, a senior captain for the East/Loyola boys swim team. “This is my last year so this will be my last chance.”

East/Loyola head coach Tim Johnson, who coached both Patrick and Andrew, says breaking the record will be a tall order for his 2008-2009 team. It is not, however, an insurmountable task.

“We’d definitely have to cut some time but, if you look back at what those four guys who set the record were swimming the previous year, they had to cut a lot of time, too. I’m not going to say it can’t be done.”

Andrew Hull says his dad tried to talk him into swimming when he was in junior high but didn’t take the bait until high school. Now he’s virtually a year-round swimmer thanks to his job as a lifeguard at the YMCA.

“That makes it pretty convenient,” Andrew said. “I can get off work and knock out a quick 1,000 yards to stay in shape.”

The younger Hull also has some specific team goals for this upcoming season. He’d like to see the Cougars go 7-2 in dual meets and finish fourth or higher in the true team state meet.

“And I think if you asked everybody on the team, another goal would be to beat Mankato West,” Hull said. “We’ve beaten them the last two years and I think we can do it again this year.”

East/Loyola’s numbers are up this year with 56 kids out in grades 7-12. Twenty-two of those swimmers are in grades seven and eight, which means Johnson had 33 swimmers to fill out his varsity and JV teams.

“It’s nice the numbers are up because they may help our depth,” Johnson said. “This was an Olympic year and the numbers always seem to spike a little bit in Olympic years. Michael Phelps was good to us.”

Johnson says Hull is the team’s top sprinter. Among the other top point-scorers this season should be senior Anthony Roy (butterfly); senior Eric Van Otterloo (fly, 500); junior Andrew Hall (200, fly); junior Aaron Laven (sprint events); freshman Max Rykhus (backstroke), freshman Joey Tietema (breaststroke) and junior Zach Small (diving).

Johnson said assistant coach Dave Burgess will serve as more of a co-coach this year. Raymie Benjamin and Andrea Benesh are also back as assistant coaches.

As for the 400-freestyle relay mark, Andrew Hull said his dad is hoping the record falls.

“He already said that whichever four of us break it, he’s going to take us all out to dinner,” Andrew said.