Soggy Week for Jersey Shore Swim Team

As most folks living in the area know, the stormy, rainy weather has not been ideal for swimming.  It has been an equally rough week for the Jersey Shore swim team against long-time opponents, Loyalsock and Wellsboro, in the new Greater Susquehanna Valley Aquatics League. 

 

The 2012 season meeting between Loyalsock and Jersey Shore resulted in a tie.  It appeared that Loyalsock would squeak by with a win this past Tuesday as they had leads in the majority of the age groups heading into the final relays including the 8-and-under girls.  Shore remained competitive in this age group throughout the meet with the help of Mackenzie Gardner’s first place finishes in the 25 meter (m) butterfly and 50 m freestyle but the age group was still short going into the final 100 meter freestyle relay. 

 

In an unorthodox move, Kate Butzler led off the 100 meter freestyle relay with the backstroke (one can swim any stroke in a freestyle event) and this created a small lead that she handed off to Celia Shemory.  Shemory reverted back to the more popular front crawl and opened up the lead even more that held for the rest of the race.  Teammates Julia Sorgen and Gardner finished the relay to come in first with a time of 1:58.80. This win resulted in enough points to regain the lead, 27-24, in their age group score and salvaged a 5-5 tie for the team score.

Wellsboro’s recent dominance over Jersey Shore continued this past Thursday but not without a fight.  The 14-and-under girls of Wellsboro came into Thursday night’s meet with an unblemished record and it took all they had to keep that alive. 

Shore’s girls ran up a deficit immediately after the opening 200 yard (yd) medley relay by coming in 2.5 seconds behind Wellsboro.  From here, the Shore girls started to claw back into the point standings by winning all the individual events. 

Jersey Shore's Gabbie Moore turning on the 50 yard butterfly
and heading back up the lane.  Wellsboro's Jillian
Berguson (in the lane below Moore) was already on the
way back up the lane.

 Moore captured the 50 yd freestyle and backstroke but it was the 50 yd butterfly that made a statement.  By the time Moore got to the wall for her fly turn, Wellsboro’s Jillian Berguson was already there and gone, swimming up the lane on the final 25 yards.  Moore gave chase and had just enough in her to catch up and pass Berguson by 2/100s of a second.

 

 Her teammate, Emma Butzler took care of the other three individual events by winning and setting new team records in the 100 yd IM (previously held by her but faster time)  and 100 yd freestyle (previous record set in 2008 by Jamie Mason) and  50 yd breaststroke (previous record set in 2006 by Danielle McPherson). 

 Jersey Shore was up 35-29 going into the final 200 yd freestyle relay and was unable to hold off a Wellsboro 1-2 finish that led to a black and orange age group loss 38-36.  Wellsboro won the meet with a team score of 7.5-2.5.

 

Above, Shore’s Luke Engel turning off the wall in his 50 yard butterfly to clock in a time
of 1:09.31 against Wellsboro. Below, Engel Engel in the breaststroke leg of
his 200 yard  individual medley where he took second place against Wellsboro.