Friday, December 20, 2024

WHS swim team sets a high bar for season after Cheverus meet

By Matt Pascarella

Windham’s swim team came out incredibly strong in their first meet of the season at the Portland YMCA on Friday, Dec. 13 against Cheverus. Windham had a first-place finisher in almost every event with Windham’s boys finishing first with a score of 86-64 and Windham’s girls tied with Cheverus with a score of 65.

Windham senior Sarah Inman competes in the butterfly event
at the Portland YMCA during a prep swimming meet on
Friday, Dec. 13 against Cheverus High School.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA
 
“I was really proud of the team and I’m looking forward to the season,” said Windham sophomore Sullivan Scharf. “Today was ... get out there and have a first meet. We were just looking to get in the pool and get some times up there. The cheering was really good, everyone was supporting each other, everybody was really working together. I like our relay teams a lot ... I like how Coach Small puts them every week so they’re a little bit different, so we get to work with different people each time. In practice I think we need to put in a little bit more work.”

Scharf finished first in the 200-yard Individual Medley with a 2:07.72-minute time. He also finished first in the 500-freestyle with a time of 5:04.99.

Windham freshman Rocco DiDonato finished first in the 200-freestyle with a 2:21.16 time. DiDonato finished second in the 100-freestyle with a time of 1:03.65.

In the 100-backstroke, Windham freshman Nick Chasse finished first with a 53.16 second time.

Windham junior Pascal Hentsch finished first with a 1:26.03 time in the 100-breaststroke.

In the 100-butterfly, Windham freshman Peter Funk finished first with a 59.95 time. He finished second in the 100-backstroke at 1:02.55.

“Coming to today, I was excited to know that we were going to have a lot of good teamwork, and we were going to cheer each other on,” said Windham senior Martina Jefferson. “We have a lot of new swimmers, so I expected there would be some nervousness ... but honestly, we barely had that. We had a lot of encouragement from everyone else and I think it went great. I think a lot of us have been great at keeping that stroke long and on the backstroke, we’ve been getting that pop kind of. I think also streamlines have been great. Our starts need a little more work ... because we want to aim to go out farther because that will decrease our time, but otherwise there’s not really a lot we have to change.”

Jefferson finished second in the 100-backstroke with a time of 1:19.32. She finished third in the 100-freestyle with a 1:10.46 time.

In the 200-freestyle, Windham senior Morgan Farley finished first with a 2:28.13 time. She was also first in the 500-freestyle with a 6:34.04 time.

Windham senior Sarah Inman finished first in the 200-individual medley at 2:34.06 and first in the 100-butterfly at 1:14.45.

Windham freshman Stephanie Roghelia finished first with a time of 27.30 in the 50-freestyle. In the 100-breaststroke she finished first with a 1:17.79 time.

“Immediately I think we exceeded the expectations we had for the first meet of the year,” said Windham swim team coach Peter Small. “Six of the 24 kids (on the team) have swum high school before; across the board kids with experience, kids without experience did things today that we were really hoping to see. First meet of the year, we always say this is your benchmark, pace it the way we’ve talked about ... try to get the technique at the greatest level we’ve worked on, but this is your benchmark. It’s from here that we measure improvement over time; times were faster, the technique was better, our turns, while we still need work was definitely better than I was expecting.” <

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