YMCA Earns Second-Highest Finish in Team History at Swimming National Championships

The Fanwood-Scotch Plains YMCA swim team set a milestone at last week's YMCA Long Course National Championships at the University of Maryland. The team finished 11th overall – the second-best all-time effort the club has ever had. The boys finished seventh and the girls just missed a top 10 finish.

"We have a really deep team,'' said Greg Baliko, 16, who placed seventh in the 200-meter breast stroke and tied for ninth in the 100 breast. "It was a huge team effort.''

The meet was held in a 50-meter "Olympic size" pool. Club and high school meets during the fall, winter and spring, by comparison, are typically held in 25-yard pools.

For Fanwood-Scotch Plains, the number of medal and ribbon winners was long. Moreover, every point scorer on the team said he or she will return next summer.

Molly Gaynor, 15, placed fourth in the 50 butterfly with a time of 28.87 seconds. Dan Napolitano, 17, placed eighth in the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:00.26, and in the 400 freestyle with a time of 4:11.71. He also placed 12th in the 800 freestyle with a time of 9:01.69. Napolitano's time of 4:07.03 in the preliminary round of the 400 freestyle qualified him for the Junior National Meet in December.

"I had my best time by a lot'' Napolitano said. "To have qualified for Junior Nationals was the impressive part.''

The 800 freestyle relay placed second with Alex Burzynski, 16, Will Brown, 17, and twins Mike and Dan Napolitano finishing with a time of 7:55.03. Burzynski led off with a two-minute flat split. Brown went 1:58.5, Mike Napolitano was clocked at 1:59.00 and Dan anchored in 1:56.9. When Dan's leg started, the team was closer to fourth than first.

"Alex might seem slower when compared to the rest of us, but he never swims [the 200] free and he led off with his personal best – Alex is primarily a backstroker,'' Dan Napolitano said. "It was my most important leg in the whole event. If I had swum poorly we might have gotten fourth. With the rest of the strong splits, I secured it. It was a close one.''

The relay team set a Fanwood-Scotch Plains YMCA record by about two seconds, and it fell about six seconds short of the national record. "Next year is a possibility,'' Napolitano said.

The 400 freestyle relay of Joe Dunn, 16, Burzynski, Brown and Dan Napolitano placed sixth with a time of 3:38.19. That was another team record.

"That was a nice finish for us." Napolitano said. "The rest of the field swam a lot faster than we expected, so to finish sixth was exciting.''

Burzynski, Baliko, Dunn and Jack Lorentzen, 17, combined to place seventh in the 400 meter medley relay with a time of 4:05.93.

Will Brown placed 11th in the 200 freestyle. Burzynski placed 16th in the 50 back with a time of 28.56. The 200 freestyle relay of Burzynski, Brown, Lorentzen and Dan Napolitano placed 12th in 1:40.06, just .01 off the state record.

Burzynski placed 15th in the 100 freestyle with a time of 54.85, and 16th in the 50 back with a time of 28.56. Lorentzen placed 14th in the 50 breast in 31.82. Sarah Cronin, 14, placed 12th in the 100 free in 1:00.10.

The 200 freestyle relay team of Gaynor, Cronin, Anastasia Bogdanovski, 16, and Hannah Markey, 17, placed fourth with a time of 1:50.02.

"The girls weren't expected to do that well, but to take fourth in the country – they had a shot to win the whole thing,'' Napolitano said.

Sarah Cronin and her sister, Jessica, 15, Jodie Thompson, 14, and Gaynor placed sixth in the 400 medley relay in 4:35.59. Cronin, Bogdanovski, Jessica Colucci and Markey finished ninth in the 400 free relay in 4:01.44

Jessica Colucci, Cronin, Caitlin English and Markey placed 11th in the 800 relay in 9:00.06. Markey placed 13th in the 50 free in 27.50.