The Dalers opened the postseason with a second place finish at the Division A Swimming and Diving Championships last week. The boys were bested only by Great Neck South, currently ranked as one of the top two teams on Long Island. The Dalers, coached by Ken Ilchuk, Randy Corcoran and Kelly Harris, beat rival Massapequa, Herricks, Westbury and Syosset, a Conference I team.
At division championships, only the top 20 finishers in each event score points for their team. The higher you finish the more points you score, so every swimmers goal is to finish as high as possible. The meet started out with a fourth-place finish by the medley relay team of Joe Scaglione, Kris Harris, Paul Giglio and Joe McCabe. Greg Carman turned in a third-place finish in the 200 freestyle and swam a personal best time of 1:53.66. Also in the 200 freestyle, James Farrington finished ninth, Conor Burke 10th and Victor Quijano finished 11th. Freshman Vlad Surmenko was Farmingdale’s top finisher in the 200 individual medley, swimming to a ninth place finish followed by Steve Makropoulos in 10th, Mike Zelazny in 14th and Justin Burtis in 15th.
On Friday, Jan. 29, when the diving part of the meet took place, Gary Alaimo finished first followed by Kyle Young, Billy Specht and James Mangione in fourth, fifth and sixth place, respectively.
In the 50 freestyle, senior Joe McCabe turned in a second-place finish, while juniors Scaglione and Tom Gehlbach came in ninth and 10th. Senior Giglio finished 14th and qualified to swim at county championships in the event, swimming a personal best time. Giglio then turned in another personal best in the 100 fly and finished 10th. Senior Chris Capozzoli was close behind, finishing 11th and swam his personal best time in the event as well. Kris Harris rounded out the scoring in the 100 fly by finishing 16th. In the 100 freestyle Scaglione finished fourth followed closely by McCabe in eighth, Burke in 12th and Gehlbach in 14th place.
Carman added another third-place finish in the 500 freestyle with a personal best time of 5:12.24, which was a four-second drop from his previous best time in the event. Farrington placed seventh, Makropoulos 11th, breaking the six-minute mark, and Quijano finished 12th. The 200 freestyle relay team of McCabe, Carman, Gehlbach and Scaglione swam well and finished third.
Zelazny turned in a personal best time of 1:09 in the 100 backstroke to finish eighth, followed by Bobby Zeno, Surmenko and TJ Murphy in 11th, 12th and 13th place respectively.
In the 100 breaststroke, Harris finished fifth followed by Mike McDanel in ninth place, Chris Prechtl in 12th place and Justin Burtis in 13th place. A fourth-place finish for the Dalers in the 400 freestyle relay consisting of the team of Burke, Farrington, Quijano and Carman sealed their second-place finish. This was the best finish for the boys in three years.
