New league doesn’t diminish swimming rivalry between East Lyme, Fitch co-ops
Groton — One day over holiday break, the Fitch High School cooperative boys' swim team got on a bus and headed for a meet against Notre Dame-West Haven, held on the campus of Albertus Magnus.
It wasn't the farthest trip in history, but consider the fact the Falcons are used to the friendly confines of the Eastern Connecticut Conference and the three remaining teams from the ECC now swim in the Southern Connecticut Conference's Division II against largely unfamiliar opponents.
“I had no clue what the team was, how good they were or the pool,” Fitch's Evan Hespeler said of the trip to West Haven.
On Tuesday, ECC swimming rivals Fitch and East Lyme met in a dual meet at UConn Avery Point, the only time they face each other during the regular season.
Fitch's co-op, made up of swimmers from Fitch, Stonington, St. Bernard, Wheeler and New London, beat East Lyme/ NFA 94-76, with Hespeler contributing four victories.
“East Lyme swam phenomenal,” said Fitch coach Katey Kokomoor, whose team has just 11 swimmers and had to make the most of its second- and third-place finishes against East Lyme/NFA, not just firsts.
This season there is no regular-season ECC champion nor will there be a team champion at the postseason ECC meet, but Kokomoor said that can't diminish the rivalry between the teams which have gone back and forth as league champs over the years.
“This rivalry goes back between Fitch and East Lyme to when my own kids were swimming,” Kokomoor said. “For me to be coaching this meet, it's really special. It doesn't go away because it's just been a longstanding rivalry and it's been a fun one.”
Kokomoor said it was difficult to keep the athletes motivated with only six league meets last year. This arrangement with the SCC provides an extra level of competition