Shore Swimmers Top the Williamsport Waves (review from last week)

With the first week of competitive swimming under his belt, Jersey Shore head coach Lee Thompson is starting to see the pieces fall into place. “I was happy with the times in our first meet with Tri-Town but not overly impressed,” said Thompson. “In the meet against Williamsport, I saw swimmers getting a little more comfortable and am more impressed now.”



Outstretched arms propel
Jersey Shore’s 12-and-under
Kollen Walters down the
stretch in the 50 yard butterfly.

 That is not to say he let his swimmers get comfortable for long. “I placed many of the swimmers outside their comfort events to see what they could do,” said Thompson. Although he let his 15-and-under girls freestyle specialists swim their event, the 100 yd freestyle (where Maddi Thompson, Jamie Mason, and Sophie Hatalsky took all three tops spots respectively) he also placed them in some events they rarely swim.

In the 100 yd breaststroke, Thompson easily cruised to a win with a time of 1:17.69 followed by teammate Alainah Rosencrance. It wasn’t a teammate that was chasing Mason in the 100 yd individual medley but YMCA National Qualifier, BethAnn Schwoyer from Williamsport. It was a race to the wall where Mason out-touched Schwoyer by 35/100 of a second. Shore’s Rosencrance picked up third. Schwoyer, Williamsport’s head coach and swimmer, bounced back quickly in the 15-over’s next event by taking the 100 yd backstroke with her sister, Jessica, getting second.

Mason was also placed in the 100 yd fly where her competition was with teammate Lindsay Dudek. Dudek pulled away from Mason in the last 25 yards to win by one second.

This older age group put the finishing touches on a 53-21 win as Shore’s Kortnee Blair, Brittney Younkin, Natasha Harkey, and Hatalsky seized the final relay. The final point of the meet was obtained when Shore’s foursome of Rebecca Schweikart, Mojave Bovard, Brittany Moyer, and Toby Letterman pulled into third.

Nate Lose on the opening leg
of his 50 yard butterfly where
he captured first for Jersey
Shore in the 14-and-under boys.

The girls were equally dominant at the other end of the age spectrum, as the 8-and-unders posted a 46-7 win. It started off with Josie Gansell, Allison Moore, Meaghan Keegan, and Isabelle Griswold swimming away with the opening 100 yd medley relay. Griswold went onto capture the 25 yd freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly and Moore taking the 25 yd breaststroke. Their dominating performance was finished with Gansell, Courtney Lehman, Sarah Misquitta, and Moore finishing first in the 100 yd freestyle relay.

Two Jersey Shore swimmers set new summer swim team records as Max Mason set the new bar for the 12-and-under boys 50 yd freestyle at 0:29.75 and Sam Keegan replaced a 4-year old record in the 10-and-under girls 25 yd breaststroke with a time of 0:18.75.

Shore’s 15-and-over boys, Derek
McPherson, coming into the wall on
the butterfly leg of his 100
yard individual medley.