The swimming & diving teams from Brunswick and Cheverus High Schools are the programs in Maine’s Class A (generally, but not exclusively, larger schools), and on February 17th at Bowdoin College’s LeRoy Greason Pool, the two teams each came away with a Maine State Championship and a second-place finish.
Boys’ Meet
Team Scores (top 5):
- Cheverus – 360
- Brunswick – 260
- Bangor – 257
- Falmouth – 202
- Windham – 161
Full meet results available here.
The boys form Brunswick started the meet strongly with an “all classes” winning 200 medley relay, swimming a 1:41.01 with a team of senior Jacob Cost, freshman Brian Hess, junior Ben Farrell, and sophomore Henry Raker. Earlier in the season, at a sub-state championship meet, Brunswick set the State Record in this event nearly three seconds faster, but since made big changes with only Hess and Farrell remaining on this group.
That was a gamble for the Brunswick coaches, but a worthwhile one as they came away with the event title anyway.
As it turned out, Cheverus’ sprint freestyle group would dominate the other two free relays, but Brunswick’s moves ensured a second-place finish in each of those relays and as a team, as they were able to save the state’s best 100 freestyler, Nate Samson.
In the 200 free relay, Cheverus swam 1:29.51 to win, and in the 400 their time was 3:21.48. Neither Cheverus nor Brunswick had any senior on their 200 free relay, which was an exception in an otherwise senior-heavy meet.
In the next event, however, the boys from Cheverus, a small Jesuit school, took charge, placing two swimmers in the top 6 of the 200 free, including runner-up Michael O’Donovan in 1:41.82. O’Donovan was defeated by senior Jake Perron from Falmouth, who was aggressive in his first 50 en route to a 1:41.32 victory.
Cheverus got its first win of the meet in the boys’ 200 IM, where junior Kevin Kane swam a 1:57.66, and he was followed by fellow junior teammate Jacob Griffin, who dominated the boys’ 50 free in 22.19.
Griffin couldn’t repeat in the 100 free later in the meet, where he swam a 48.97 – but he fell to a new State Meet Record from Brunswick’s Nate Samson of 46.64. That broke the 2013 makr held by Nick Sundquist (47.00), though it was still a hair shy of the 46.60 overall State Record set in 2009 by future Indiana Hoosier standout James Wells.
Though the school ranks 28th out of 31 programs in Class A by size of student body, the Stags had no issue with depth at this meet: they put two swimmers in the top 10 of every individual event except the 100 breaststroke and 1-meter diving.
In between those sprint races, Westbrook’s Greg Violette, a senior, won the 100 fly in 52.01, which included beating his own best time by a second-and-a-half. Violette had a handful of good swims early in 2015 that foreshadowed this breakthrough result, which beat our Brunswick’s Jacob Cost (53.53) and Cheverus’ Kevin Kane (53.96) to play the role of spoiler.
Violette doubled up later in the meet with an almost-identical 52.10 to win the 100 backstroke – five seconds ahead of the rest of the field. His biggest competition, Brunswick’s Cost, actually touched first to stop the clock in 51.51, but was disqualified for a 15-meter violation.
The heavy lean toward senior domination at this meet rolled on in the 500 free, where the victory went to Falbrook’s Jake Perron in 4:38.71 – more than 8 seconds faster than the rest of the field.
Perron’s two individual victories earned him the Performer of the Meet award.
The final individual event of the day went to Bangor freshman Colby Prouty in 59.57. He picked up the torch from his senior teammate Liam Reading (1:00.78), who placed 2nd for the 2nd-straight year.
Girls’ Meet
Team Scores (Top 5)
- Brunswick – 246
- Cheverus – 230
- Kennebunk – 217
- Bangor – 216
- Deering – 183
Full meet results available here.
The girls’ meet had several fantastic story lines running through it, not the least of which was the Performer of the Meet Mariah Brady winning two individual events and scoring 40 of her team’s 44 points just through her two individual swims.
That started with a victory in the 50 free for the senior sprinter, which Brady won in 24.57 – beating out Deering’s Kate Pontius (24.79) and Brunswick’s Emma Blair (24.94).
Brady’s second win came in the 100 free with a 53.67 to win by nearly a second ahead of Cheverus’ Abby Longstaff (54.54).
Aside from her, this meet was a fantastic team battle that had at least four teams in contention for the title for the majority of the day.
Brunswick first made their big move in the meet in the 100 fly, coming out of the diving break, where sophomore Caitlin Tyez won the girls’ 100 fly in 54.99 – a five-second margin over her nearest competitor.
Following the Brady 100 free win, Brunswick picked up another dominating win in the 500 free when Lynsie Russell swam a 5:20.78 to beat out Bangor sophomore Hannah Wood (5:27.56).
The Brunswick girls would make it three-for-four in the 200 free relay, including Emma Blair (25.68), Sophie Blair (28.73), Russell on a quick turnaround (25.50), and Tyez (24.52) combining for a 1:44.43. This is a young Brunswick team (that relay was all underclassmen) that has a chance to repeat again next season.
The Westbrook High School girls, with two freshmen and likewise four underlcassmen on their relay, took 2nd in 1:46.10.
The next race broke the Brunswick run a little bit, but it took a Meet Record, and a near even-split swim, from Marshall Lowery of Kennebuck to do it. She went (28.15 + 28.97 = ) 57.12 to break a two-year old Meet Record. Tyez, earlier winner of the 100 fly, took 2nd in 58.47, and Cheverus’ Abby Longstaff was 3rd in 59.13.
That was Lowery’s second win of the meet; she earlier won the 200 IM in 2:13.04.
Edward Little’s Olivia Paine (1:08.03) and Deering’s Sofie deOliveira (1:12.78) went 1-2 in the 100 breaststroke, which didn’t have a huge impact on the team title battle, leaving the 400 free relay to decide the champions.
Brunswick, having saved their stars Tyez and Russell once again for this relay, had enough to win the race and take the championship. Once again, with four underclassmen, the victory went to Lynsie Russell (56.65), Emma Blair (56.63), Hannah Escoe (1:00.01) and with a big come-from-behind anchor Tyez (52.53).
Brunswick had just a 3-point lead coming into the event, but grew that to 13 as a result of this win.
That’s how the team battle went at the end of the meet, but rewinding to the start, the Bangor girls won the opening 200 medley relay in 1:55.35, half-a-second clear of the Deering relay (1:55.84) thanks in large part to Lilli Wiseman’s 27.57 butterfly split.
That was followed by Massabesic’s Elaine Dudley, who won the girls’ 200 free in 1:56.73.
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