Let’s take a look at what happened in the first week of November up and down Route 69. We’ll start with Waterbury, the home of the NVL girls swimming and diving champions:
Sacred Heart wraps up another NVL girls swimming and diving title
The Hearts are quite the power in NVL girls swimming and diving, and they proved it again with a third straight league championship on Nov. 6 at Kennedy High School. The night was complete when coach Butch Savage dove into the pool.
Sacred Heart tallied 780 points, 61 clear of second place Watertown, according to the full meet results posted by the Waterbury Republican-American.
The Hearts began the night with a flourish when the 200-yard medley relay team of junior Erin Brown, senior Sunshine Drysdale, senior Kiersten Snyder and senior Brianna Montambault won the race in 1:56.99. Sacred Heart also finished first in the 500 freestyle, 100 backstroke and the 400 freestyle relay. The winners were senior Alizabeth Sullivan in the 500 free, Brown in the backstroke and the team of Sullivan, junior Abby Walsh, Brown and Snyder in the 400 freestyle relay.
The Hearts only won four of the 12 overall events, but their depth proved to be the biggest factor. Here’s how Sacred Heart did by place:
2nd place — 200 freestyle (Sullivan), 100 butterfly (Brown)
3rd place — 50 freestyle (Snyder), 100 freestyle (Snyder), Medina (500 freestyle)
4th place — 200 freestyle (Walsh), 200 freestyle relay (junior Abigail Bemer, Montambault, Sullivan, Walsh), 100 breaststroke (Drysdale)
6th place — 200 IM (Jocelyn Medina, junior), diving (Alexa Gallino, sophomore)
Individual events are scored 32 (1st), 29 (2nd), 28 (3rd), 27 (4th), 26 (5th), 25 (6th) and so on.
Relay events are scored 64 (1st), 58 (2nd), 56 (3rd), 54 (4th), 52 (5th), 50 (6th) and so on.
The top 24 finishers in individual events earn points for their team. All finishing relays score points for their respective teams.
Sacred Heart picked up 58 second place points, 84 third place points, 112 fourth place points and 50 sixth place points. All told, that adds up to 304 team points, nearly 39 percent of the team total, and that’s just those who finished second, third, fourth and sixth. On the flip side, the Hearts picked up 192 points (about 24.6 percent) for finishing first. Those numbers alone show the quality of the program that Sacred Heart puts out. That quality led to a third straight league championship.
… St. Paul’s Hylan and Bowes have a great night
Seniors Kim Hylan and Sarah Bowes have been leaders at St. Paul for a long time, both in the pool and out. That leadership continued during the NVL championship meet.
Hylan finished first in both the 200 and 100 freestyle races. Bowes was second in both the 50 and 100 freestyle events. Hylan and Bowes were on the second place 200 freestyle relay team, along with freshman Molly Guglielmino and sophomore Kayleigh Grustas. Hylan and Bowes were also a part of the fourth place 400 freestyle relay team, along with Grustas and Guglielmino. Guglielmino also finished eighth in the 50 freestyle.
St. Paul finished eighth out of 12 teams at the meet.
… Mowad wins twice for Holy Cross at NVLs
Holy Cross sophomore Maddie Mowad took first place in the 200 IM and 100 breaststroke to highlight her team’s day. The Crusaders also finished fifth in the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay events.
Wolcott’s top finisher was senior Carrington Conner, who took third in the 100 butterfly. Fellow senior Sarah Burton also competed and finished ninth in the butterfly. Conner and Burton swam with Naugatuck this season, as Wolcott doesn’t have a team.
Wilby’s top finisher was junior Julia Nguyen, who placed 10th in the 100 butterfly.
Kennedy’s top finish was in the 400 freestyle relay, where they took 10th.
Holy Cross finished ninth as a team, followed by Wilby in 10th, Kennedy in 11th and Wolcott in 12th.
Bristol Eastern captures swim title
The Lancers won the CCC South Blue Division championship on Thursday night at Plainville High School.
It was a great team effort for Eastern, led by first-year head coach Nick Daddabbo. Freshman Brianna Ogonowski and sophomore Emily Douglas each came up with big efforts near the end of the meet for the Lancers, who also won the regular season division title.
Cross country State Open
Two Bristol Central runners competed in the cross country State Open on Friday at Wickham Park in Manchester.
Senior Matt Varnum finished 62nd out of 188 competitors in the boys race while junior Hannah Jones was 69th out of 181 in the boys race.
Two Lancers to play in senior all-star game
Bristol Eastern girls volleyball seniors Angela Daley and Bailey Wyrebek will compete in a senior all-star game on Monday, Nov. 23 at Plainville High School. The information was provided on the Bristol Eastern athletics Twitter account.
As always, if you have a suggestion for “A trip down 69”, email me at sportsonct69@gmail.com
You can also tweet at me @sportsonct69
