Windham High School swimmers show improvement against Scarborough

By Matt Pascarella

Halfway through the season and in the first meet of 2024, the Windham High School swim team is making steady improvement and showed it during a meet against Scarborough on Wednesday, Jan. 3 at Saint Joseph’s College. The Windham girls defeated the Red Storm, 79-72, and the Windham boys fell, 125-24.

Windham junior Morgan Farley keeps pace as she competes
against Scarborough during a swimming meet on Wednesday,
Jan. 3 at Saint Joseph's College.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA

“The team’s been working really hard,” said Windham swim coach Peter Small. “The technical aspects we wanted to kick in have really kicked in and a lot of that is they have been working really hard. We’re seeing acceleration under water, we’re seeing folks grabbing the water better, we’re seeing strokes that are longer, we’re seeing streamlines off the wall that are just better. All those technical things we were hoping would kick right in have kicked in for a lot of these kids. I just stood back in awe at a lot of our races today how well things are kicking in.”

Girls

In the 50-yard freestyle junior Morgan Farley finished first with a 28.26 second time. She finished second in the 500 with a 7:05.56 time.

“My expectation was to put my all into my races and do the best I can even if my times weren’t my best times,” said Farley. “Coach has taught me a lot about worrying about technique instead of my time and I think that’s really helpful. The 50 freestyle went really well, because I only took one breath which was my goal and I thought that my technique was really good; I loved my time, it was the best time that I got. We had very good team spirit – it’s really helpful in general.”

Farley said she could work on pacing in her 500 and as a team, they need to change that mindset from “I can’t” to “I can.”

In the 200 individual medley, junior Sarah Inman finished first with a 2:30.29 time. Inman finished first in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:21.62.

Senior Grace Theriault finished with a 1:05.12 time in first place in the 100 freestyle. Theriault finished second in the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:21.55.

In the 200-freestyle seniors Riley Small finished fourth and Mackenzie Gaudette finished fifth. Small had a time of 2:41.45 and Gaudette had a 3:14.11 time.

Small finished third in the 100-freestyle with a 1:16.92 time.

Boys

In the 500-freestyle, freshman Mason Butterfield finished second with an 8:01.30 time. He also finished third in the 200 with a time of 2:49.50.

In the 100, senior Landon Buzulchuck finished fourth with a 1:09.68 time. Behind him was sophomore Wyatt Washburn in fifth place with a 1:11.89 time and senior Joey Somma with a time of 1:17.21 in sixth place.

Washburn finished third in the 50 with a 29.10 time. Buzulchuck was fourth with a time of 29.61 and Somma finished fifth with a 29.80 time.

“Coming in we were not worrying about the other team,” said Washburn. “We’d just do the best that we could and focus on ourselves and give it all that we got. We really improved from last meet. Positivity [went well]; flip turns [need work].”

In the 100 backstroke freshman Sawyer Stone finished third with a 1:47.34 time. Sophomore Caden Valle came in fifth with a time of 1:51.06. Junior David Daignault finished with a 1:58.55 time in sixth place.

In the 400 relay, Windham came in third with a time of 5:13.58.

“Our kids raced,” said Coach Small. “Each week we talk about what specifically we want to do and for us today it was this idea of acceleration under water. Kids responded really well. It was fun to see.”

Small said he thinks they need to swim downhill more and while the acceleration was better, there’s still room to improve. They still need to see that thrust at the tail end of each one of their strokes. <