2023 LC Senior Eastern Zone Championship
- August 3-6, 2023
- Erie Community College, Buffalo, NY
- LCM (50 meters)
- Results:
The 2023 Senior Eastern Zone Championship meet is in the books. The competition was hosted by Star Swimming this past weekend at Erie Community College in Buffalo, New York. Occoquan Swimming came away with the team title, as they scored a combined total of 530 points across the weekend.
Team Scores (Combined):
- Occoquan Swimming – 530
- Three Village Swim Club – 507
- Gator Swim Club – 459
- Asphalt Green Unified Aquatics – 308
- Team Pittsburgh Elite Aquatics – 305
Kennedi Dobson of the Eastern Express Swim Team collected a total of five victories and set three new personal best times. Highlighting the events she won was the 800 freestyle, where the 16-year-old dropped over a second to post an 8:53.12. Her other 1st-place finishes came in the 100 free (57.46), 200 free (2:00.78), 400 free (4:16.37), and 200 IM (2:19.97), all of which were slightly off her personal bests. Three of her five performances marked new meet records, including the 200, 400, and 800.
Dobson dropped over two seconds en route to her runner-up finish in the 200 backstroke, where she stopped the clock at 2:15.59. Rounding out her events was the 100 fly, as she grabbed 2nd behind Casey Cullen (1:02.79) to post a best time of 1:02.96.
Duquesne’s Haley Scholer took 1st in the 200 backstroke with a new meet record time of 2:13.41. Her swim marks a personal best by half a second and takes her under the Olympic Trials cut in the event. Scholar also competed in prelims of the 100 back, which she led with a time of 1:04.37.
Another meet record fell in the 400 IM, as Allison Henry of NRG Swimming posted a season best time of 4:55.78. Henry’s personal best stands out at 4:55.10, which she did back in 2019.
On the boy’s side, the Adirondack Bluefins’ Finnegan McFarland secured three titles. McFarland first won the 800 freestyle in 8:33.11, dropping 16 seconds from his previous best time. He later won the 200 free with a four second time drop (1:55.82) and touched 1st in the 1500 with a best time of 16:31.62.
The boy’s side of the meet also saw handful of meet records get reset. Elijah Lanfear took down the record in the 50 freestyle with a winning time of 23.08, putting him about three tenths under his previous best time from this past July.
Drew Henry knocked over two seconds off Kieran Smith’s mark in the 200 backstroke from 2015. Henry, representing NRG Swimming, clocked a final time of 2:04.20 to miss his own personal best by just 0.04. In the 200 breast, Joseph Hong from Pinnacle Racing posted a best time of 2:16.56 to win the event by over five seconds and also dip under the meet record in the process.
The 400 IM saw a tie between Trevor Green and Alex Grocholski, who both stopped the clock in a meet record time of 4:31.40. Both Green and Grocholski set best times in the race, dropping six seconds and three seconds, respectively.
Rounding out the meet record performances was David Bocci in the 200 fly. In his lone event of the meet, Bocci stopped the clock at 2:01.93, putting him within a second of his previous best set this July at Futures.