Bedford-Katonah Teams Make Move on Day 2 of County Swim Meet

After a quiet first day at the Westchester County Swimming Championships, Katonah and Bedford area teams made their presence felt on Tuesday, earning a number of medals and even breaking a meet record in the process.

The highlight of afternoon came in the  second event of the day, in which Anita Louise Ehrman's quartet of Brian Glat, Chandler Glat, Evan Barker, and Christopher Draper, took first place in the boys 10-and-under 200-Yard Medley Relay in a new meet record time of 2 minutes and 23.84 seconds.

The old record of 2 minutes and 26.49 seconds, set last year by Bronxville Field Club, was also broken by the team from Wykagyl Country Club, which placed second in the event.

"I'm really excited for these guys," said ALE Head Coach Laura Tiedge. "They're all strong swimmers. They all started basically swimming at ALE as young kids who couldn't really swim. They caught the fire of summer swimming and they love swimming together. There's a lot of cohesion there."

For the four swimmers from Anita Louise Ehrman, as well as their coaching staff, Tuesday's county meet record was very much in the making, and comes as the icing on an already overly successful year.

"We thought we had a chance to break it," said 10-year-old Brian Glat. "At the All-Star meet this year we got first and broke the record and last year we got third swimming under the previous record time so we knew we had to go after it."

Building on the early afternoon success of the relay, Brian Glat, Christopher Draper, and Chandler Glat all came back to qualify for the finals of the boys 10-and-under 50-Yard Freestyle, placing 6th, 7th, and 8th respectively.

Another athlete building momentum in this year's Westchester County Championships is Lewisboro Swim Team's Kierstin Chu, who earned her second medal in as many days on Tuesday.

After earning a somewhat unexpected 5th place medal in Monday's Girls 14 & Under 100 Yard Freestyle, 13-year-old Chu simply dominated the final of the Girls 14 & Under 100 Yard Backstroke, her specialty, winning in a time of 1 minutes and 2.51 seconds. Her time was almost two seconds ahead of her closest competitor and less than one second slower than the meet record.

"It definitely gave me a lot of confidence," said Chu about earning a medal on Monday. "The first day I was nervous that I wasn't going to make finals because everyone is so fast in freestyle. Today I just wanted to go for it."

Chu's teammate, Emma Grace Housman, narrowly missed making the final for the event, placing 9th in a time of 1 minute and 7.59 seconds. Lewisboro's team of Donald McLoughlin, Max Tillmann, Matt Kaufman, and Max Delin qualified for the finals of the boys 17-and-under 200-Yard Freestyle Relay, finishing in 8th place in a time of 1:43.64 seconds.

In other events, Katonah Swim Team's Michael Baudinet earned a fifth place medal in the boys 14-and-under 100-yard backstroke, posting a time of 1:00.28 seconds.

After two days of competition, Anita Louise Ehrman sits in fourth place in the boys team scores and 10th place in the combined team scores with 43 points. Lewisboro is currently in 16th place in the girls team scores with 13 points, and 26th place in the combined team scores with 15 points. With six points, Katonah Swim Team is in 33rd place in the combined team scores.