Smallwood wins county swim championships for 3rd time in 4
Smallwood claims third swim title in four years
The Smallwood Village Aquatic Club swim team has featured immense talent and depth in various age groups across the board within the county over a number of years.
Sunday at the Charles County swim championships at their home pool in Waldorf, the Marlins showed why they have been a force to be reckoned with by delivering with a team-high 424 points en route to their third county title in four years.
Hawthorne, which topped Smallwood 377-342 for the county championship in 2015, finished runner-up this time with 379 points. Westlake finished in third with 239 and Bannister came in fourth with 115 points.
Smallwood won 17 of the 49 events in the annual county meet, including three of the five relay events.
As Smallwood celebrated with the championship trophy, head coach Jeff Rivenburg and his wife Jamie, also the team’s assistant coach, were drenched with water while being thrown in the pool by several members of the team.
“There was a lot of PRs and personal bests,” said Rivenburg, also the head swim coach at North Point High School. “From our younger to our older kids, we swam fantastic across the board, especially our relays. Ever yone has been working hard and today was a testament to that. Today was
a close meet, it could’ve went either way.”
On winning three titles in four years since arriving at the helm of the program, Rivenburg added, “We are blessed with really good swimmers and again the kids have worked really hard. We have great parents that support us and we have a great coaching staff that focuses on the fundamentals of improving our strokes and swims. That has been in a favor and led us to a championship, so it has been a great season. Hawthorne has a great team and really battled with us.”
With many team, pool and meet records broken on the day, there were eight triple winners. Smallwood’s Nicholas Sapp (boys 9- to 10-yearold), Addy Donnick (girls 9-10), Cole Rapczynski (boys 11-12), Esther Dugan (girls 11-12) and Liam Vienneau (boys 15-18), all of Hawthorne, Kerrigan McMillen (girls 13-14) and Emily Decker (girls 15-18) from Westlake and Bannister’s Jonathan Parham (boys 8-and-Under) all touched the wall first in three events.
Smallwood also had four double winners in the meet with Nathalie LaFontant (13-14 girls), Clayton Jameson (11-12 boys), Lawrence Sapp (13-14 boys) and Nicholas Rawson (15-18 boys).
“I think I really did well this meet after I was sick all week,” said LaFontant, who won both the 50-meter freestyle and 50 breaststroke, setting a meet record in the freestyle event with a time of 29.37 seconds. “I was barely at practice and to come back and be right around my times was really good and I’m happy.”
LaFontant also led the girls 200 medley relay team, consisting of Jaelyn Sapp, Teagan Rohrbaugh and Mya Rivenburg to a come-from-behind win, breaking a team and pool record with a time of 2 minutes 19.91 seconds.
“I was able to make up a lot of ground on my leg because we were behind,” LaFontant said, “but I’m happy that we were able to come back and win that event.”
Connor Vienneau collected top finishes in the 50 back and 100 individual medley for Hawthorne, breaking his own pool records in the medley event in 1:04.72 and the 50 back in 29.57.
Vienneau was going for a third win on the day, but Lawrence Sapp edged him out in the 50 free in 26.22, winning by six one-hundredths of a second and both swimmers broke Vienneau’s pool record of 26.29.
“Overall, it was a good day, but I was a little disappointed about the 50 free because I got out touched,” Vienneau said. “I was happy about the 50 back and I improved my time in that. We had a [division] meet the day before, so I was a little tired.”
Sapp also won the 50 butterfly in 28.19, setting a new meet, pool and team record.
“We always have our battles, we’ve raced against each other for a couple years now,” he said. “In the freestyle, that was real tight race, glad I was able to win it. In the last stretch of the medley he got me in the end.”
Saturday morning, each team will take part in their respective PrinceMont Swim League divisonal championship meets. Smallwood and Hawthorne will compete in the Division B meet at Strathmore Bel Pre in Silver Spring. Westlake will be in the Division D meet at West Laurel Swim Club in Laurel, while Bannister is scheduled to travel to Belair Swim and Racquet in Bowie to compete in the Division E meet.