Swim Team Tactic Pays Off With Win Over Linden

It's a long season for the high school swim team, so Cranford head coach Barbara Kolesa likes to mix it up a little bit.

Instead of putting her swimmers in the same spots that they usually take, she tried some of them in their least favorite events. The tactic paid off.

The Cougars won an easy 130-37 points over Linden on Friday night at Cranford Memorial Field swimming pool.

They won all 11 of the events and took several second place finishes as Cranford opened up its dual meet season. Before Friday's match the Cougars came in third in the Carnival Relays at Edison earlier in the week.

"We want to see how they do outside of their normal races," said Kolesa. "We want to make them more diverse."

Take junior Kelly Miller for example. She finished third in the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 1:30.56.

"It was kind of a challenge," said Miller who usually swims the 100-meter breaststroke and the 500-meter freestyle.

And senior sprinter Connor Harkins, who won the 200 freestyle-meter with a time of 2:15.53.

"I never swam the 200 free so I was pretty happy with it," he said. Harkins added that he would like to break the 23 second barrier this season in the 50-meter freestyle.

One of the more exciting races came in the 100-meter freestyle where senior Katie Pijanowski came from behind to nip teammate Juan Torres.

"It was exciting and it was a close race," said Pijanowski who has been on the team for all four years. "I just go in there and do the best I can and have some fun."

Junior Rob Lento came in first in both the 200-meter medley relay and the 400-meter free relay. Lento's proclivity to sprint races helped the relay teams.

"It's important to get a good start with the 50," said Lento whose favorite events are the 50- and 100-meter freestyle races.

Lento joined Christian Woo, Zac Fried and Evan Brawley to take first in the 200-meter medley with a time of 2:02.95. He also joined Jennifer Heine, Will Bender and Pijanowski for first in the 400-meter freestyle relay with a time of 4:29.52.

In addition to trying different swimmers in different events, Kolesa said that she has been pleasantly surprised on how the times have come in the early going.

Lento's results are one of those surprises. His times in the 50-meter freestyle events match his times from the peak end of last season.

Cranford swimmers take on Dayton on Tuesday and Ferris on Friday.

Results for the Cranford-Linden meet:

200 medley relay

1. Rob Lento, Christian Woo, Zach Fried and Evan Brawley, 2:02.95

2. Ivanna Gomez, Allison Schneider, Kelly Miller and Kathleen French, 2:07.73

3. D. Kotov, Megan Pijanowski, Kaitlin Hipkin and M. Kozlowski, 2:27.43

200 freestyle

1. Connor Harkins, 2:15:53

2. Peter Gallo, 2:27.55

3. Brian Leu, 2:41.92

200 Individual medley

1. Jennifer Heine, 2:36.15

2. Ivanna Gomez, 2:43. 29

4. Megan Pijanowski, 3:02.09

50 freestyle

1. Allison Schneider, 26:86

3. M. Kozlowski, 32.95

6. Catherine Burns, 36.65

100 butterfly

1. Brian Woo, 1:01.44

2. Zach Fried, 1:15.25

3. Megan Byrne, 1:15.83

100 freestyle

1. Katie Pijanowski, 1:05.26

2. Juan Torres, 1:05.88

4. Will Allen, 1:15.00

500 freestyle

1. Nick Kalafatis, 5:37.06

2. Eric Walano, 6:27.00

3. Lori Joseph, 7:55.82

200 free relay

1. Eric Walano, Brian Woo, Connor Harkins and Nick Kalafatis, 1:42.06

3. D. Weinstein, Megan Byrne, Katie Pijanowski and Kelsey Fried, 2:14.45

6. Naomi Assaf, Catherine Burns, G. Vosseller and V. Nayda, 2:40.71

100 backstroke

1. Christian Woo, 1:07.30

2. Kathleen French, 1:16.86

3. Kelly Miller, 1:20.56

100 breast stroke

1. Evan Brawley, 1:19.64

3. Juliet Longo, 1:25.26

4. Kelsey Fried, 1:37.28

400 free relay

1. Jennifer Heine, Rob Lento, Will Bender and Kati Pijanowski, 4:29.52

2. Juan Torres, Lori Joseph, J. Sterling and G. Vosseller, 4:53.01

4. Tom Marra, D.Couto, M. Ghiretti and D. Kotov, 5:15.25