Swimmers continue to make strides

The CHS varsity girls’ and boys’ swim teams were not able to pick up victories last week in meets against King Philip or Mansfield, but as has been the case throughout the course of the season, many swimmers were able to make individual strides.

The girls lost 93-75 against KP last Wednesday and lost 91-71 against Mansfield last Friday, falling to 2-4 on the season. 

The boys lost 96-45 against KP and 97-58 against Mansfield, falling to 1-5 on the season.

Despite the losses, Canton still had five swimmers qualify for the sectional championships in February. 

The girls’ 200-yard freestyle relay team — Alison McHugh, Andrea Konopka, Misty King and Brianna Duserick — qualified with a time of 1:57.17. Individually, Konopka qualified in the 100-yard freestyle event with a time of 1:01.75.

For the boys, Chris LeDonne had already qualified in both the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle events and is within “tenths of a second” of qualifying in the 50-yard freestyle event, according to coach Lori Mooney.

Meanwhile, other swimmers were able to continue to improve their respective times against KP and Mansfield. 

On the girls’ side, Emma McHugh (no relation to Alison) improved her 500-yard freestyle time by 15 seconds after having already dropped her time by five seconds the week before against Sharon; Olivia Kenyon shed eight seconds off her time in the 100-yard fly; and Catherine Hunter improved her time in the 200-yard freestyle by nine seconds.

On the boys’ side, John Whittemore improved his time in the 100-yard freestyle by four seconds and his time in the 100-yard breaststroke by three seconds. Evan Leibovitz dropped his time in the 100-yard freestyle by four seconds, while also shedding two seconds off his time in the 100-yard backstroke. 

“They are starting to drop more seconds than before, and we have yet to even peak with our workouts,” Mooney wrote in an e-mail to the Citizen.

As Mooney explained, the team increases the distance it swims in practice throughout the course of the season and when the team reaches its “peak” distance, Mooney scales back the yardage each person swims, “which should bring [further] drops in times.”

Both teams face Foxboro and Norton in a meet at Wheaton College on Friday.

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Posted by Jeffrey Pickette on Jan 21 2010. Filed under High School, Sports. Both comments and pings are currently closed.