Lions led by frosh swimmer
Freshman Brown impresses to help Lincoln finish seventh
Young Sadie Brown captures 3rd-, 5thplace finsihes
BRISTOL – Lincoln head coach Tom DiIorio didn’t have a choice but to arrive late to his girls foray into the R. I. Division I Swimming Championships at the Roger Williams University natatorium on Sunday afternoon.
He promised his family that he’d attend his mother-in-law’s surprise 80th birthday party in the state’s northwest section, then had to drive nearly to the Mount Hope Bridge. When he finally arrived at RWU during the seventh event – the 500-yard freestyle – DiIorio discovered his swimmers were doing quite well with assistant Matt Parenteau in charge.
Then again, girls senior captain Lily Jacobson played a role in substituting as a “swimmer/coach,” ignoring her own rest between events to cheer on her teammates at nearly every turn.
That’s just one of many reasons DiIorio’s Lions managed to place a somewhat satisfying seventh in the D-I field of 10 squads with 140 points, just 1.5 shy of sixth-place Rogers and only eight above No. 8 Wheeler.
“Our goal coming in was just to beat the teams we had beaten during the dual-meet season, like Wheeler, Prout, South Kingstown and maybe Rogers,” DiIorio indicated after the meet. “We hadn’t faced Rogers, but I thought we’d match up well with them.
“We were also really looking forward to facing our rival Cumberland here in the D-Is, but for some reason it got dropped down to D-II this season.
“I had decided to swim the IM and the 500 here to help me decide which to swim at the state meet. I was going to the 100 breaststroke anyway, but now I’ll go with the 500. I’m basing that on my time and where I placed here.” — Lincoln freshman standout Sadie Brown
“With teams like La Salle, North Kingstown, East Greenwich and Barrington, I knew there was no chance of sneaking into the top five,” he added. “To be honest, I didn’t have many expectations at all, except for seeing the girls swim as fast as they could at this point of the season. I thought we did very well at that.
“I’m pleasantly surprised at most of our kids’ times.”
As always, freshman sensation Sadie Brown led the charge, placing third in the 500-yard freestyle (high school-best 5:27.37) after taking fifth in the 200-yard individual medley (2:18.61). She swam the breaststroke leg of the seventh-place 200 medley relay (also consisting of juniors Amanda Allen and Anna Vygoder with Jacobson as the anchor); that foursome finished in a season-best 2:02.48.
The foursome of Brown, senior Caroline Weggeland, sophomore Melissa Pierce and Vygoder also managed sixth in the 400 freestyle relay (4:13.80), while the 200 freestyle relay unit of Emma Gianetti, Weggeland, senior co-captain Natalie Jorge and Jacobson forged seventh in 1:54.68.
In those three relays, LHS racked up over half of their points (74) while Brown earned 30 more by her lonesome.
“My IM was OK; I felt kind of tired because I’ve been sick all week,” noted Brown. “I’ve had a bad cold, and it won’t go away, but I’ll take the fifth place. That makes me happy. In the 500, I thought I had a really good race; my main motivation was that my friend Jordyn Raftery (a La Salle sophomore) was swimming right next to me, and I was trying to beat her.”
She then laughed, “After we finished, she told me, ‘I saw you trying to speed up and beat me, so I sped up, too!’ But this is good. I had decided to swim the IM and the 500 here to help me decide which to swim at the state meet. I was going to the 100 breaststroke anyway, but now I’ll go with the 500. I’m basing that on my time and where I placed here.”
Still, there were plenty of other outstanding performances. Vygoder took 10th in the 100 breaststroke (PR of 1:17.11) after grabbing 13th in the 100 butterfly (1:09.06); Jorge eked out 16h in that latter event after hustling to a 1:12.16 clocking, a lifetime best by about three ticks; and Jacobson not only placed 10th in the 50 freestyle (27.54), but snuck out a 15th in the 100 freestyle with a two-second PR of 1:01.14.
Then there was Allen’s ability to claim 11th in the 100 backstroke (1:08.67) and 15th in the 200 IM (2:35.69), while Jorge took 14th in the 200 freestyle (PR of 2:14.89) and 16th in the 100 butterfly (1:12.16).
Pierce nevertheless may have produced the biggest time drops of any Lion present on the RWU pool deck. She had entered the 200 IM as the 20th seed with a previous best 2:40.25, but soared to 13th with a thrilling 2:32.46 clocking.
Then, in the 500 (where she ranked 19th with a time of 6:21.34), she hustled to new best-ever 6:15.76. The only downside? She took 18th and failed to score.
When asked how she could muster those kids of massive improvements, she said shyly, “Well, in practice (last) week, the coaches had us do a lot of work on our underwaters, starts, turns, breakouts and other stuff. I will say I’m surprised with myself. I didn’t think we had done enough yardage, but I’m really pleased.”
Jacobson indicated she wasn’t surprised at all with the amount of her teammates who scored points.
“The amount of energy we bring to every meet speaks to how well we do in the pool, and we brought a lot of it (to RWU),” she offered. “We always have girls at the end of the lane where we have someone swimming to cheer her on; we help push them.
“As for me? I think this year has been different for me because I used to be a breaststroker, but I wanted to focus on the spring freestyles; that’s where I thought we needed the most help, and I wanted to help fill out the relays.”
So what did she think of DiIorio’s tardy arrival?
“For me personally, I wish he had been here from the start, but we knew he had something really important to do, so we understood. I knew he was thinking about us, wondering how we were doing, but I knew we had Matt here (for guid- ance), too.
“The second I saw Tom walk in, he was into it; we all knew he was here for us.”