BATH — For the third time in as many years, both girls’ and boys’ swim teams of Brunswick High School walked away with the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference championships at the Bath Area Family YMCA on Saturday.
The girls totaled 339 points on the day, while Cony (224) and Messalonskee (164) captured second and third place, respectively. For the boys, the Dragons walked away with 335 points, with Messalonskee taking second with 206 points and Cony third with 191.
Not only did the Dragons take home the title, but they swept the board with the rest of the awards, including girl and boy Swimmer of the Meet. Sophomore Caitlin Tycz captured it for the girls, while Nate Samson received it for the boys.
“It’s exciting,” Dragons swim coach David Bright said. “We have to recognize that we’re fortunate that we have the program here at the ‘Y’ that those kids train with year-round, but they’re both great leaders on the team have the respect of everyone on the team, not just because they’re fast swimmers, but they’re good teammates too.”
It all started right out of the gate for the Dragons, when the boys’ 200-yard medley relay team (Samson, Brian Hess, Jacob Cost and Ben Farrell) set a new state record of 1:38.18, breaking its own record set back during Brunswick’s first meet at Morse in early December.
“We had set the record earlier in the year, so it was our own record,” Bright said. “We were excited because back (in December). It was a big deal, especially in our first meet of the year to set a state record that had been standing for 10 or 15 years. We actually moved people around, put people in different strokes and had one different swimmer there. We swapped another swimmer out so that just shows we have some depth.”
Lewiston placed second in the event, finishing with a time of 1:55.19, while Messalonskee crept up in third with a 1:56.79 finish.
Other notable finishes occurred during the girls’ 50-yard freestyle event when Tycz set a new KVAC record of 23.95 seconds, beating the previous one by .07 seconds set by former Mt. Ararat standout Celia Ouellette two years ago.
Tycz also collected another conference record, beating her own set last year by 1.02 seconds at 54.72. Samson set a new conference record in the boys’ 50-yard freestyle event, finishing in a speedy 21.51 seconds and breaking former Lincoln Academy swimmer Sylas Hatch’s record of 22.13 set back in 2007.
“It feels great, I just love swimming and my team is being really supportive,” Tycz said of her two new records. “We practice every day for high school for over an hour and I also swim for the club team here in Bath, so I swim two and a half to three hours a day, plus dry-land training with my coach.”
Overall Tycz took home four first-place finishes, including her participation in the girls 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays.
Other big-impact events included the boys’ 200-yard freestyle, where Lewiston standout Mathew Charest was edged out by Cony’s Noah Aube by .15 seconds to decide the first-place finisher. However, Charest placed first in the boys’ 100-yard freestyle event, finishing five seconds ahead of the others.
Overall, the Brunswick girls team combined for 10 first-place finishes, with the boys taking home eight.
With Brunswick sweeping the floor once again, Mt. Ararat’s girls coach Tracy Doviak said that competing against a team like the Dragons is always tough, but makes sure that her swimmers focus on themselves first.
“Just preparing the kids for the competition,” she said. “A lot of my kids, all they do is swim high school swimming so they have an hour in the pool throughout the whole season. It’s just letting them know that what they’re up against is themselves and to try and better themselves.
“That’s what we focus on, having them look at their times prior or their best times and have them try and make a personal best, especially at a big meet like this, it’s really important to them.”
With the KVAC Championships out of the way, the State Championships will be the next focus. The Class A boys will participate on Monday the 16th at Bowdoin College’s Leroy Greason Pool, while the girls will travel on the same day to the University of Maine-Orono’s Stanley M. Wallace Pool.
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