With the threat of snow, the Nassau County Swimming and Diving Championship meet was shortened last weekend. Normally the competition consists of a preliminary qualifying contest on Friday night, where the top 20 swimmers return to swim again on Saturday morning in the finals for the top 10 and consolations top 11-20. This year due to the weather forecast, the preliminaries were cancelled and Friday night’s competition became the finals for Nassau County.
Coached by Ken Ilchuk, Randy Corcoran and Kelly Harris, the Dalers rose to the challenge and finished ninth in Nassau County out of 25 teams and most every Farmingdale swimmer turned in their best and fastest time.
The 200 medley relay team of Joe Scaglione, Kris Harris, Paul Giglio and Joe McCabe finished 11th in the event with a season best time of 1:52.05. In the 200 freestyle junior Greg Carman finished 10th in the county with a time of 1:53.20. Senior James Farrington swam to a 19th-place finish in 1:57.40, followed by senior Conor Burke in 24th place. Like his teammates, Burke finished under the two-minute mark at 1:59.28. Victor Quijano came in 31st in the event. In the 50 freestyle the Daler sprinters did well. Senior McCabe lead the way by placing 10th in the county in a time of 23.45. Junior Scaglione finished tied for 18th when he swam a 23.89 and junior Tom Gehlbach swam a season best 24.44 to finish 29th.
The Farmingdale divers competed earlier in the week in the diving competition and did well. Senior Gary Alaimo scored points for the Dalers, finishing seventh in the county. Billy Specht came in 21st, John Gonzalez finished 23rd and Kyle Young came in 26th.
In the 100 fly, senior Giglio finished 33rd with a personal best time of 1:03.44. Yeimer Bran also swam a best time of 1:06.93 and finished 46th in the event. The season-long rivalry between sprinters McCabe and Scaglione continued in the 100 freestyle with McCabe edging out Scaglione to finish 16th overall in the event with a time of 53.17. Scaglione finished in 53.51 in 18th place. Burke came in 21st in 54.03 and Gehlbach came in 32nd in 55.63. Both were their best times in the event.
Carman swam to his second top-10 finish for Farmingdale in the 500 freestyle. He swam a personal best time of 5:11.87 and finished 10th overall. Farrington finished 18th with a time of 5:21.22, dropping nine seconds off his previous time. Quijano swam and finished in 5:40.47 for 26th place and Steve Makropoulos finished 35th, also dropping nine seconds, with his best time of 5:48.40. The 200 freestyle relay team of Scaglione, Gelhbach, Carman and McCabe finished ninth in this event for the Dalers in 1:35.51.
Mike Zelasny finished 39th, while Vlad Surmenko and TJ Murphy finished tied for 41st in the 100 backstroke for Farmingdale. Freshman Kris Harris placed 32nd in the 100 breaststroke. Finally, the 400 freestyle relay team of Burke, Quijano, Farrington and Carman swam to an 11th-place finish by racing to a 3:37.36.
The meet was a wonderful ending to the boys swimming and diving season. The Dalers will be saying goodbye to 16 seniors, but several fast and hard working freshman, coupled with the experienced juniors, should make next year just as exciting.
All results can be found at www.Section8swimming.com.
