Lions win D.II swim crown
Lincoln’s depth, mindset, luck help claim D-II title
Lincoln captures championship in comeback fashion
BRISTOL — Melissa Pierce confessed she had a gut feeling about how her Saturday would pan out numerous times last week.
“I had a very good mindset coming into this meet; I’ve never felt so prepared,” the Lincoln High senior admitted, referring to these R.I. Division II Girls’ Swimming Championships at the Roger Williams University natatorium.
“I felt very positive all week, and I think we did as a team as well. We’d all talk about how we believed in one another and, after practice, we’d talk about our goals, share our thoughts. Plus we’re really spirited and laid-back, anyway.”
But then came the sign, she said. As premeet warm-ups began winding down, the RWU announcer decided to crank up over the intercom the late John Denver’s ditty, “Country Roads.
“When we heard that, we flipped! I mean, that’s our team song,” Pierce grinned. “After every away meet, on the way home on the team bus, that’s the last song we sing. That was an omen.”
No one knew how much so for at least two-and-a-half hours.
She and her teammates had trailed favored Classical for most of the D-II session before snaring a three-point cushion entering the meet’s final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay. In that race, the Purple held the No. 1 seed, while Lincoln School and Lincoln
High sat in the next two spots.
The Lions desperately needed to outduel the Providence contingent if they wanted to win the team crown, yet – based on the first three legs – it became apparent they wouldn’t.
But that’s when something unusual began to happen. The Lynx’ quartet started to shave Classical’s sizable lead and the sophomore sensation Sonia Mlakar eventually overtook the supremely-talented Purple 10th grader Kendra Daily on the last 25. In the end, Mlakar’s astonishing 52.98 split on the anchor outdid Daily’s 55.92, and Lincoln School landed first in 3:47.02.
Classical settled for runner-up honors in 3:49.32 and the Lions’ foursome of freshmen Andrea and Sophia Alonzo, sophomore Sadie Brown and frosh Olivia Nault third in
3:51.34.
Still, during that final 50 yards, Lions’ head coach Tom DiIorio, in short, flipped out. He hustled over to assistant Matt Parenteau and yelled, “If Lincoln School wins, we win!”
During the heat of the moment, it took DiIorio a minute to process, but officials finally acknowledged his inkling.
Because the Lynx had clinched the winning 40 points, the Purple the runner-up 34 and Lions the No. 3 32, DiIorio’s crew had outlasted Classical for the team championship, 299-298.
Senior Anna Vygoder, who didn’t even take part in the last relay, stood behind Lane 3’s starting block sobbing into Pierce’s arms. When asked why she was crying, Pierce laughed, “Tears of joy!”
A few minutes later, as is customary when an aquatic squad clinches a state crown, they shoved their coaches into the drink, and that’s just what senior co-captains Amanda Allen and Vygoder and company did to DiIorio and Parenteau.
Even before “Country Roads” came to be, both hoped for a D-II championship but knew it would be a tall order after the 10th of 11 events.
“I didn’t even think about it,” DiIorio said of what a Lincoln School victory in the 400 freestyle relay would mean. “I finally figured it out when they started to close in on Classical the final 100. That’s why I ran over to Matty and said, ‘We have a chance! We have a chance!’
“I can’t believe it; I never thought it was possible, especially after we were shut out of the 500 (freestyle); that’s when we fell way behind,” he added. “We had a lead for a bit early on, and we had to claw our way back. What we did in the 100 backstroke and 100 breaststroke, that was huge.”
In the timed finals of the backstroke, Allen took seventh with a PR of 1:07.55, Andrea Alonzo ninth (1:10.33) and freshman classmate Reina Park 12th to collect 26 points, while CHS managed 24.
Then, in the 100 breaststroke, Brown raced to the gold in 1:09.35, just .47 ahead of runner-up junior Melanie Gomes of Westerly, while Vygoder placed fifth (PR of 1:14.89) and junior Jewell Arruda 15th (1:33.92).
In that event, Lincoln outscored the Purple, 36-22, and that’s what catapulted them into the lead.
“This is unbelievable,” DiIorio noted later. “They all listened; they all persevered. All this past week, I got on the girls. I laid it all on the line. I told them that if they were going to walk around and say, ‘I’m not going to do my best time,’ then they wouldn’t.
“I said that if they wanted this, and if they had the right way of looking at it, they could win it. I told them this would be possible.”
He hesitated, then laughed, “But for it to come like this? That I never expected.” His heroines came in many forms. First, the 200 medley relay quartet of Allen, Vygoder, Brown and “SuperFrosh” Nault took fourth in a season-best clocking of 1:57.02, and Nault added to her jewelry box/trophy stand with gold medals in the 50 freestyle (25.18) and 100 freestyle (PR of
55.54).
She had split a PR of 24.40 in that 200 medley relay, than outbattled Daily for first in the 50 by .56. The 100, however, didn’t come as easily. Gomes’ 50 split of 26.67 happened to be .71 quicker than Nault’s, yet she hunted her down the final 10-12 yards and edged her by .05.
“I could see at the 75 that the girl was ahead of me, and I have to say that was kind of a panic moment for me,” Nault chuckled. “I was just thinking, ‘I’ve got to move!’ I was lucky enough to get my hand to the touch pad a little faster.
“This means a real lot,” she continued of the two titles. “I’m really stoked. I had my hopes coming in, but I also was nervous. You just have to keep any negative thoughts out of your mind.”
Brown also racked up big points with the win in the 100 breaststroke and a third in the 100 butterfly (1:01.0), as did Brown with a fifth in the 50 freestyle (PR of 27.76) and seventh in the backstroke; Vygoder fifth in the 100 breast and 11th in the 100 butterfly; and Park a 12 in the back and seventh in the 200 individual medley (2:31.91).
Pierce nevertheless provided some of the team’s most critical points, doing so in memorable fashion.
After being seeded out of the top 16 in the 200 freestyle, she hustled to eighth with a 2:17.73 clocking, nearly 15 seconds faster than her previous-best time. Then, in the 100 butterfly, she eclipsed her former PR by almost six ticks (1:12.88) and took 14th.
For someone who was slated to score maybe three-four points for the team, she manufactured a whopping 14.
Then again, junior teammate Domenica DaCosta did virtually the same with a ninth in the 50 freestyle (PR of 29.47) and 12th in the 100 freestyle (best-ever 1:06.59); and classmate Jewelle Arruda mustered 15th in the breaststroke for two more points.
“You know, I came in here before warmups and I felt so good, I told Anna Vygoder, ‘I have a really good feeling about this,’” Pierce said, at least 60-70 minutes before the team verdicts were finally announced. “We were just ready.”
By the way, in Lincoln’s final 400 freestyle relay, Andrea Alonzo split 1:01.39, sister Sophia 59.09, Brown 56.18 and Nault 56.48. According to DiIorio, all were personal-best times.
In its first Interscholastic League Division II championship meet ever, the PCD/St. Raphael Academy girls’ squad made quite the showing, garnering ninth in the 10-team field with 108 points.
SRA sophomore Morgan McCann led the way, earning third in the 200 freestyle (2:10.52) and sixth in the 100 breaststroke (1:15.40) after helping the Knights/Saints land seventh in the 200 medley relay. The foursome of Meghan Cabral, Finley StockGuild, Katherine Castanos and McCann achieved a time of 2:02.96, a winter-best by six seconds.
Castanos chipped in a fifth in the 200 IM (2:29.40) and eighth in the 100 butterfly (1:06.04); and Cabral eighth in the 100 freestyle (1:03.83) and 11th in the 100 backstroke (1:10.95).
Stock-Guild also tacked on a seventh in the 100 freestyle (PR of 1:02.29), but apparently had to scratch out of the 100 breast
stroke due to injury.
“The underlying thought of the meet: The kids just trusted their training,” offered head coach Kate Farrington of her girls’ contingent. “They believed in the things they were doing in training, and it paid off. We had a lot of kids earn PRs.”
Actually, the PCD/SRA boys fared a little better than their female counterparts, as they registered seventh overall with 181 points, but only one behind No. 6 South Kingstown.
Highlighting that effort, sophomore Pedro Conceicao finished third in the 200 IM (2:19.80) and sixth in the 100 butterfly (1:03.72), and both were personal bests by a combined 12-13 ticks. Conceicao also joined Aiden Trendell, Ethan Potvin and Evan Sucov on the fifth-place 200 medley relay (1:55.88), and the same bunch snatched third in the 400 freestyle relay (3:51.22).
Trendell added a third in the 100 backstroke (1:02.61); Potvin fifth in the 100 breaststroke (1:11.19) and seventh in the 500 freestyle (5:38.57); and Sucov 10th in the 100 freestyle (59.07) and 11th in the 50 freestyle (26.17).
“That last relay was amazing,” Farrington stated after the boys’ clash. “We went 0-51 during our dual-meet season, and we finished third in the 400 free relay. That means we beat five other teams. That was like ‘The Little Engine That Could.’ Every kid had a PR on that relay.
“Aiden Trendell is another one, he took third in the 100 back, but only 29 hundredths of a second separated the winner and Aiden,” she added. “It was unbelievable … We had our first-ever interscholastic league meet against Portsmouth right here back in December, and we really didn’t swim that fast.
“But to see hiow far we’ve cone , how much faster we’re swimming, it’s amazing. We had over 10 top-16 finishes. You’ve got to give the kids credit.”
R.I. DIVISION II SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS At Rogers Williams University
GIRLS
Team standings
1. Lincoln 299; 2. Classical 298; 3. Lincoln School 282; 4. Westerly 235; 5. Middletown 196; 6. Portsmouth 190; 7. South Kingstown 183; 8. Toll Gate 161; 9. PCD/St. Raphael Co-op 108; 10. Narragansett 106.
Area placements
200y medley relay – 3. Lincoln (Amanda Allen, Anna Vygoder, Sadie Brown, Olivia Nault) 1:57.02; 7. PCD/SRA ( Meghan Cabral, Finley Stock- Guild, Katherine Castanos, Morgan McCann) 2:02.96.
200y freestyle – 3. McCann ( PCDS) 2:10.52; 8. Melissa
Pierce ( L) 2:17.73.
200y individual medley – 5. Castanos ( PCDS) 2:29.40; 7. Reina Park ( L) 2:31.91; 14. Andrea Alonzo ( L) 2:41.05.
50y freestyle – 1. Olivia Nault ( L) 25.18; 5. Allen ( L) 27.76 100y butterfly – 3. Sadie Brown ( L) 1:01.30; 8. Castanos ( PCDS) 1:06.04; 9. A. Alonzo ( L) 1:07.08.
100y freestyle – 1. Nault ( L) 55.54; 7. Stock- Guild ( PCDS) 1:02.29; 8. Cabral ( PCDS) 1:03.83; 12. DaCosta ( L) 1:06.59. 200y freestyle relay – 2. Lincoln (Allen, Sophia Alonzo, A. Alonzo, Vygoder) 1:46.96.
100y breaststroke – 1. Brown ( L) 1:09.35; 5. Vygoder ( L)
1:14.89; 6. McCann ( PCDS) 1:15.40.
400y freestyle relay – 3. Lincoln (A. Alonzo, S. Alonzo, Brown, Nault) 3:51.34.
BOYS
Team standings
1. Cranston East 360; 2. North Providence 340.5; 3. North Kingstown 301; 4. Classical 231.5; 5. East Greenwich 227; 6. South Kingstown 182; 7. PCD/St. Raphael 181; 8. Rogers 102.
PCD/SRA placements
200y medley relay – 5. Aiden Trendell, Ethan Potvin, Pedro Conceicao, Evan Sucov 1:55.88.
200y individual medley – 3. Conceicao 2:19.80.
100y butterfly – 6. Conceicao 1:03.72
500y freestyle – 7. Potvin 5:38.57.
200y freestyle relay – 8. E. Trendell, Jake Parente, Jay Monteiro, Jack LeBeau 2:08.99.
100y backstroke – 3. A. Trendell 1:02.61.
100y breaststroke – 5. Potvin 1:11.19
400y freestyle relay – 3. Conceicao, A. Trendell, Potvin, Sucov 3:51.22.