FSPY Swimmers Place Sixth in State Champs

The Fanwood Scotch Plains YMCA ("FSPY") finished sixth among the 25 teams competing at the recent New Jersey YMCA State Championship meet for swimmers aged 13-18. FSPY swimmers broke two meet records and set nine team records at the meet, held March 12 to 14.

Katy Comer, Jodie Thompson, Molly Gaynor, and Sarah Cronin formed FSPY's relay teams in the 13-14 age group. The 200 medley relay team broke the existing meet and team records, finishing at 1:49.89, which was .74 of a second behind a team that set a new YMCA national age group record.

FSPY's second place 200 freestyle relay also set a new team record. Relay anchor Sarah Cronin won the 100 freestyle setting a new meet and team record and scoring in four other events, including the 50 free (fourth) and a team record performance in the 200 free (third). Katy Comer and Molly Gaynor each broke two team records and scored in five individual events. Comer set new team backstroke records at the 100 (second) and 200 (third) yard distances. Gaynor earned team records in her third and fourth place finishes in the 200 and 100 yard butterfly. Jodie Thompson scored in three events, including two breaststroke events with times qualifying her to join her relay teammates at the national YMCA short course championship meet.

In the 15-18 age group, Gabriel Levine set a new team record in the 100 butterfly, finishing second. Levine also scored in the 100 backstroke and 50 freestyle. Caitlin English scored in three individual events. Scoring in one individual event were freestylers Jessica Colucci and Emily Piekarski, and breastrokers Stephanie Baliko and Hannah Markey. FSPY relays finished fourth (200 free), sixth (400 medley), seventh (200 medley), and eighth (400 freestyle). Levine, Colucci, Markey, English, and Baliko swam in multiple scoring relays. They were joined by Rebecca Dunn in the 200 medley relay and Micaela Lyons in the 200 freestyle relay.

Greg Baliko, Dan Napolitano, and Alex Burzynski spearheaded a strong FSPY performance in the boys 15-18 age group. Baliko scored in seven individual events, including second place finishes in both the 200 breaststroke and 200 individual medley. Burzynski and Dan Napolitano each scored in six individual events, including Napolitano's second place finish in the 200 freestyle and fourth place finish in the 500 freestyle. Multiple individual event scorers were Jack Lorentzen (four), Joe Dunn (three) and Mike Napolitano (two). Burzynski was also a member of the three scoring relay teams - 400 medley (third), 400 freestyle (third) and 200 medley (seventh). Will Brown anchored the latter two relays. While Dan Napolitano, Baliko, and Mike Napolitano were in two of these relays, Dunn competed in the third place 400 freestyle relay.

Scoring in individual events for the 13-14 age group were Ryan Gajdzisz (five), Tyler Lessner (four), Anthony Gurrieri (two), and Aaron Markey (one). Lessner swam the breaststroke leg of the seventh place 200 medley relay and Markey anchored the seventh place 200 freestyle relay. On both of these relays, Gurrieri and Gajdzisz competed together with Jeff Peart.

Coach Chris Feinthel who has lead the Piranhas to top ten finishes each of the past four years summed up the effort: "I am very pleased with how well we raced over the nine sessions and three days of states. It says a lot about the work ethic of our athletes to perform well in so many events. It was a rewarding culmination of six months of training."