Mounties Swimmers Can't Get By Ridgewood

The Montclair girls swimming team knows how to get to the state sectional final—but they don't yet know how to get around the challenge posed by Ridgewood.

The Lady Mounties have made the state sectional final the last four years and have gone 2-2, but those two losses have come against Ridgewood in the last two years.

Montclair dropped a 93-77 decision on Thursday to lose the North 1A state sectional title to Ridgewood at Passaic Tech in Wayne. Last season, it was an 89-81 defeat.

The Lady Mounties started out slow as Ridgewood went ahead 21-9 and Montclair just couldn't catch up.

Montclair head coach Ed Koenigsfest said that the Maroons just had a little more depth than the Mounties. "We have depth on our team, but they have more depth," said Koenigsfest. "They have a very strong team."

And Ridgewood head coach Keith Cook agreed with his counterpart. "We hammer it in to them that coming in second, third, and fourth is what wins meets," said Cook.

Despite the loss, Koenigsfest knows that his team will be back again at this point with the hope of coming out on top in 2012. The Lady Mounties graduate the likes of seniors, Abby Chambers, Gabriella DeBernardo, Anna Drukker, and Casey Hough, but have a large bulk of swimmers coming back.

Between the two schools it was a split in the series in the state playoffs. Koenigsfest pointed out that the Montclair boys team defeated Ridgewood, 86-84, last week in the first round of the North 1A boys section. The Mounties boys lost to Bayonne in the second round. Bayonne would go on and win the section.

While the Montclair girls team won more races, 7-4, against Ridgewood, it was the Maroons collecting more second and third finishes throughout the meet—and that made the difference.

Leading the way for the Lady Mounties were Samantha Regan and Olivia Graham, both Montclair swimmers, who took a pair of first place finishes. Regan won the 200 individual medley (2:19.22) and 500 freestyle (5:32.31) while Graham grabbed the freestyle sprints 50 (25.95) and the 100 (57.32) events.

In addition, Koenigsfest pointed out the personal bests from freshman Nicole Gitter in the 100 freestyle (sixth place, 1:05.07) and sophomore Lucy Frezza in the 100 butterfly (fourth place, 1:05.74).

The closest that Montclair came to Ridgewood was in the fifth event, the 50 freestyle, where the Mounties took first and second in Graham and Frezza (26.55). After the 50 free Montclair trimmed the Ridgewood lead to 33-29.

North 1A Girls Swimming Final

Ridgewood 93    Montclair 77

200 Medley Relay

1. Ridgewood, Effie Angus, Grace Kwon, Rachel Cortright and Camille Vasquez, 1:57.07
2. Montclair, 1:59.94
3. Ridgewood, 2:02.85

200 Freestyle

1. Rachel Cortright, Ridgewood, 2:00.43
2. Codi Haigney, Montclair, 2:00.77
3. Margo Tanner, Montclair, 2:08.71

200 Individual Medley

1. Samantha Regan, Montclair, 2:19.22
2. Nora O'Leary, Montclair, 2:21.44
3. Effie Angus, Ridgewood, 2:21.47

50 Freestyle

1. Olivia Graham, Montclair, 25.95
2. Lucy Frezza, Montclair, 26.55
3. Tori Holzberg, Ridgewood, 26.95

100 Butterfly

1. Rachel Cortright, Ridgewood, 1:02.44
2. Siobhan Goodman, Ridgewood, 1:03.62
3. Camille Vasquez, Ridgewood, 1:05.47

100 Freestyle

1. Olivia Graham, Montclair, 57.32
2. Katie Citti, Ridgewood, 58.62
3. Tori Holzberger, Ridgewood, 59.54

500 Freestyle

1. Samantha Regan, Montclair, 5:32.31
2. Margo Tanner, Ridgewood, 5:39.18
3. Cali Bird, Ridgewood, 5:40.94

200 Freestyle Relay

1. Montclair, Lucy Frezza, Maya Alexander, Mora O'Leary, Samantha Regan, 1:50.25
2. Ridgewood, 1:51.81
3. Ridgewood, 1:56.29

100 Backstroke

1. Effie Angus, Ridgewood, 1:03.07
2. Codi Haigney, Montclair, 1:04.61
3. Maya Alexander, Montclair, 1:07.39

100 Breaststroke

1. Nora O'Leary, Montclair, 1:12.54
2. Grace Kwon, Ridgewood, 1:14.65
3. Katie Citti, Ridgewood, 1:16.12

400 Freestyle Relay

1. Montclair, Olivia Graham, Lucy Frezza, Samma Regan and Codi Haigney, 3:51.03
2. Ridgewood, 3:53.21
3. Ridgewood, 4:09.59