Victory at Last: Wildcat Swimmers Dunk Hatters 104-79

It has been two seasons in the making. The Bethel Wildcats swim team has finally broken into the win column with an exciting meet against the Danbury Hatters. It was fitting that the Wildcats gave their seniors the best gift of all on senior night at the WCSU pool. The team collectively jumped into the pool in celebration when the final results were read aloud by the swim judge, a 104-79 victory.  This also included the coaching staff in their street clothes. 

Coach Katie McGowan summed up how she felt and said, “Very excited! It is out first win in two years. The last time we won was three years ago when we beat Oxford. It was actually senior night three years ago that we last won.” 

The meet has been circled on the calendar as one that would be close, and possibly might get the Wildcat swimmers into the win column.

McGowan talked about what she told her swimmers before the meet.  “This is going to be a close meet, so every place counts," she said. "It doesn’t matter if you’re first or fifth, every single place is getting points for the team. I told them some of Danbury’s times, and what they had to do to beat those times. I made sure that they were up and cheering for each other. We’ve come up short in some of the recent meets we’ve had, and we really wanted to make sure this was a win.”

Danbury started out strong in the 200 Medley Relay. They took the first and third place with the winning time of 2:01.69. Bethel’s team of Tucker Bjornson, Andrew Guercio, Sarah Whalen and Patrick Garrity finished at 2:03.20.

Bethel took the top two spots in the 200 Freestyle. Kenny Darrah took the top spot with a time of 2:12.26. Kevin Gallagher came in second four seconds behind with a time of 2:16.04.

Bjornson won the 200 IM by a solid nine seconds with a time of 2:25.56. and Whalen came in third for the Wildcats at 2:35.13.  Danbury took the top two spots in the 50 Freestyle. Senior Captain Patrick Garrity was Bethel’s top finisher with a time of 26.25. 

The diving competition saw sophomore Rebecca Jones take another top spot in her short diving career.  She finished with a score of 145.9 to lead all divers.  Alex Nackid finished second for the Wildcats. His second place finish was as a result of some last minute preparation.

“Alex couldn’t do the reverse dive before he got here today,” McGowan said. “The dive coach said he could do it as an exhibition, which wouldn’t give points in the standings.  He learned the dive in warm-ups and did it in the meet. He ended up placing second.  That was huge.”

Kyle Rogers was the Wildcats top finisher in the 100 Butterfly.  “Kyle Rogers came in third in the 100 fly had his best time today 1:13,” McGowan said.

The 100 Freestyle was a sweep for the Wildcats. Kevin Gallagher led the way with a time of 58.85. Patrick Garrity was less than a second behind with a time of 59.80. Darrah rounded out the sweep with a time of 1:00.10.

The 500 freestyle is the distance race for high school swimmers. To break it down, it is roughly five lengths of a football field, about a third of a mile, or 20 lengths of the pool. In fact, it is long enough that they have lap counters dunking lap numbers under the water so that the swimmers know how far they’ve swum.

The 500 Freestyle resulted in the Wildcats taking the top two positions. Whalen had a standout performance, eventually finishing a lap ahead of the competition.  Danbury held second place for majority of the race, but Katie Bozzuti over took the Danbury swimmer and finished second with a time of 6:55.41. 

“Sarah Whalen won the 500, she did a 6:13 and her best time before this was a 6:24,” McGowan said.

Bethel’s team of Brian Sjblom, Darrah, Gallagher, and James Canfield finished the 200 Freestyle Relay with a time of 1:46.17, which was good enough for second place in the race.  Danbury took the first and third positions. 

Bjornson took first in the 100 Backstroke with a time of 1:09.57.  Aiden Ford finished third for the Wildcats in a time of 1:17.35. 

Danbury took the top position in the 100 Breaststroke. Laura Steinmetz came in second for the Wildcats with a time of 1:21.72, and Andrew Guercio took third with a time of 1:22.10

Bethel closed out the win by taking the top two positions in the 400 Freestyle Relay.  The team of Garrity, Darrah, Gallagher and Bjornson finished in 4:01.93.   Canfield,  Sjblom, Whalen, and Andrew Guercio took second in 4:22.08. Put one in the win column for the Wildcat swimmers.