Delaware Valley Regional High School, which doesn’t have a formal swimming program, made history at the Skyland Conference Championships when the Terriers competed in their first-ever relay.
Senior Aleksa Lapinas, a Skyland and tri-county medalist who had been the only girl representing Del Val for the past three years, finally got teammates to split the 200-yard freestyle relay. The four girls — Kelly Moran, Kate Brown, Sarah Feiner and Lapinas — won their heat, finishing with a time of 2:03.04. (Hillsborough clocked 1:38.23 to win that event on its way to sweeping the relays.)
“Having a team is really exciting for me,” Lapinas said. “It’s so nice to finally have a group, and it was just really exciting to be able to cheer on people from your school — the relay was the best part of the meet. We didn’t know what to expect, and it ended up being awesome.”
Lapinas later placed fifth in the breaststroke with a time of 1:10.56.
“I was honestly kinda disappointed about how I swam that event,” Lapinas admitted, adding that she was still glad she medaled at the Skyland Conference because she had just returned from a training trip to California.
Lapinas, Feiner and Moran have been swimming competitively for years through the USA-Swimming and YMCA club programs. Feiner and Moran entered Del Val this year – Feiner as a freshman and Moran as a transfer student. They soon reached out to Lapinas and joined forces.
“It’s so great because we didn’t really care if we won the heat or not,” said Feiner, who had the fastest split of the relay (23.95). “We were just excited that we were getting to swim together and winning our heat was a plus.”
Brown, a lifeguard at one of the local health clubs in Alexandria Township where all four girls live, learned the turns and got other training tips from her more experienced teammates.
The team is looking forward to competing in both relays and individual events at the Hunterdon-Warren-Sussex Tri-County Championships at Kittatinny Regional High School on Jan. 26.
Lapinas, who has been recruited by Division I and III swim programs, plans to swim in college.
Bridgewater-Raritan’s rare form
You could call Dylan Sali the MVP for the Bridgewater-Raritan boys swimming team at the Skyland Conference Championships.
The senior set two individual records and helped his relay squad break a meet and pool record in the 400 free, propelling the Panthers to victory in seven of the 11 events.
Sali clocked 50.57 in the 100-yard backstroke, which broke his own meet and pool record of 51.96 last season. He also swam 1:53.25 to shatter the meet record for the 200 individual medley.
“Well, we put up a lot of best times for the season,” said Sali, who was the lead-off swimmer for both the record-breaking 400 free relay and the first-place 200 medley relay teams. “Now we can see what we’re capable of as a team when we work hard.”
Bridgewater-Raritan coach Sean Foley said he won’t make dramatic changes ahead of the county meet.
“The boys have been doing a great job, so far,” Foley added, “and our focus is to maintain what we have been doing and to always keep moving forward, no matter what the lineup is or what we are doing for practice.
“The most gratifying aspect of (the championships) is that we were able to have all of the seniors on the team participate in the meet, and everyone from Dylan Sali to Zach Tiano performed very well.”
The Panthers have a couple of tough contests on their roster — Pingry on Tuesday, and Christian Brothers Academy on Thursday.
Notes
St. Joseph boys swimming team, the defending champion, won the Pirate Invitational at the Bubble in Monmouth Junction on Saturday with 295 power points. Andrew Nesbitt and Ethan Louie notched top scores for the Falcons. Hunterdon Central girls finished first with 321 points; Holly Christensen (Hunterdon Central) and Katrina Kuhn (Bishop Ahr) raked in the most points for the girls.