Our AquaVikes sent 12 swimmers between the boys and girls squads to this year’s Division II state championships, resulting in 10 top-10 finishes including six in the top five. As a team, our girls placed a best-ever fourth overall with 117 points and the boys took seventh place with 91 points.
Headlining the results was the girls 200 freestyle relay team of Lillian Bailey, Morgan Spalding, Maddie Esposito and Olivia Lewis finishing as state runners-up with a time of 1:36.79! This was the first individual state runner-up finish for our girls swimming program since 2015 (400 freestyle relay squad of Anya Konyé/Sydney Brault/Sarah Campbell/Abby Wilson; Jordan Skilken in 2016/2018 and Esther Lawrence in 2017 were also state runners-up in diving).
The girls added a fourth-place finish in the 50 freestyle (23.93 with new school record of 23.88 in prelims) by Olivia, who also placed sixth in the 100 freestyle (52.66) and swam again with Lillian, Morgan and Maddie in the 400 freestyle relay which took fifth place (3:35.17). Lillian was also 10th in the 200 IM (2:09.54) and 15th in the 100 butterfly (1:00.21), while Maddie was 13th in the 50 freestyle (24.89). Earlier in the week, Elle Vahedian placed fifth in the D2 state diving championships with a total score of 368.75.
On the boys side, Andy Li who took third place in the 500 freestyle (21.12) and fifth in the 100 freestyle (46.65) and also teamed up with William Duan, Ethan Liu and Mircea Butnariu to claim fifth place in the 200 freestyle relay (1:27.45). The boys 200 medley relay of Justin Li, William, Andy and Mircea also finished seventh overall (1:37.84). Rounding out the final results was William at ninth in the 100 breaststroke (58.43).
Congrats to varsity head coach Anthony Russo, assistant Mandy Mallott ’03 and diving coach Jill McInerney on a memorable season leading our AquaVikes!