On Thursday evening, the boys’ swim team won their home opener and improved to 2-0 on the season with a thrilling, 47-46 win over East Hampton. Here is the recap of the meet from coach Laura Donlevy.
The Bears started off the meet with a first place finish in the 200 Medley Relay from Gavin Paton, Oliver Griffin, Hugo MacDonald, and Will Tao. In the very next event, senior captain Griffin took first place in the 200 freestyle, followed by a perfect swim by Christian Duryea-Kelly who took care of business by placing third. MacDonald swam an outstanding 200 IM, scoring points by placing second. In the first heat of the 50 freestyle, Aaron Nam took third and Joshua Kim took 2nd. In the second heat of the 50, Paton took first with a time of 23.06 and James Wigington came in third in 23.95. At this point, the Bears led 26-15.
After the break, we had a huge 1-2 finish in the 100 butterfly. MacDonald took first in a time of 1:02.16 and Tao came in right behind with a time of 1:02.34. Paton took home another first place for us in the 100 freestyle. In the 500, Duryea-Kelly had a huge second-place finish for us. After the 500, the score was 33-24, Bears.
In the 200 freestyle relay, East Hampton made a comeback by placing first and third. Our sprint relay of Chris Liu, Tao, Stephen Cisz, and Wigington did a great job by placing second for us and holding off EH’s point gain. In the 100 backstroke, Tao took third, but East Hampton took the lead for the first time in the meet.
Heading into the last individual event of the day, the Bears were down, 37-38. Griffin and Liu took care of business, going 1-3 in the 100 breaststroke. The point spread was now 44-39, SBS. In order to win the meet, we had to place at least second in the 400 Freestyle Relay.
In the final event of the day, one of our relay swimmers, freshman Wigington, was not feeling great, but his teammates rallied around him, and he swam for this team. Without James stepping up, this win would not have happened. Our relay team of Paton, MacDonald, Wigington, and Griffin finished the job we set out to do. They took second, making the final score 47-46.
Other notables included Sebastian Guadalupe-Pena’s best times, incredible effort, and leadership. Will Zeron showed up and swam for his team. Eighth-grader Jason Lu and Andrew Burke had big relay swims for us. Team manager Reid Saraniero set up our timing system and hyped up this team today, and every day. The girls’ team supported the boys well and pushed them to get better every day in practice. All of our families and friends supported us today at our pool and from afar. We couldn’t have done this without them.
This meet came down to the very last event of the day. It was a total team effort to get this win. Every single member of this team contributed today. Congratulations on a very tough, well-deserved win.
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