Bulldogs' Swim Season Ends at Districts

UPDATE: After the diving competition, the Stone Bridge girls team fell to eighth place while Marshall pulled into seventh. Stone Bridge does not having a diving team.

During the regular season, Stone Bridge won a dual meet against Marshall, so the Bulldogs were looking to finish ahead of the Statesmen in both the boys’ and girls’ ledgers at the Liberty District championship meet Saturday night in Annandale.

The girls succeeded, behind senior Catherine (Dani) DeGooyer, who was just edged out for a spot in the Northern Region championship meet in her best event, the 100-yard backstroke. DeGooyer finished seventh, with a time of 1:03.17, just an arm’s-length short of extending her season.

Swimmers must finish in sixth place or better to qualify for the regional meet, or they must have made a time cut — 1:03.09 — during the season. Consequently, DeGooyer’s Stone Bridge swimming career has ended.

In the grand scheme, Stone Bridge has a long way to go to compete with the likes of annual Northern Region powers like Langley — the winner of the girls’ meet — and Madison — the winner of the boys’ meet — so it makes sense to try to matchup against a lower-level team like Marshall.

In the boys’ meet, the Statesmen (184 points) had the upper hand, finishing sixth behind the powerful freestyle swims of Cyrus Hashemi, who won one event and placed third in another. The Bulldogs finished in eighth place with 100 points.

In the girls’ meet, where 16^th place was good enough for 1 point, the Bulldogs had enough point-worthy finishes to edge Marshall for seventh, 98-91. Events such as the 200-yard freestyle relay — with DeGooyer, Caroline Fornatora, Haley Springman and Apolonia Pollock — proved to be the difference, as Stone Bridge finished sixth, ahead of South Lakes and Marshall.

“All the schools that we swim against are in Fairfax [County] and they just have very strong teams,” said first-year coach Adriana Segura, explaining that those teams practice three times a week. “We only get to practice two days a week, and that also affects us a little bit.”

But the meet program clearly showed what the Bulldogs must do if they’re looking to move up in the district: put more swimmers in the top two heats. The majority of Stone Bridge’s swimmers were seeded lower than 16^th, which meant unless they performed above their ranking, they could not score any points.

Segura is looking for some underclassmen to lead the way.

“We do have several sophomores that are going to be good in the next couple years,” she said, noting Nick Kost, who tied for 13^th with Langley’s Jack Reilly in the 100-yard freestyle. “Hopefully, by their junior or senior year, they can shine.”

Kost also helped the Bulldogs’ 200-freestyle relay team break the school record. He teamed with Cas Kowaleski, Karan Chaudhary and Luke Schierling to swim the event in 1:36.01, which tied with Langley for sixth place.

While the Stone Bridge swimming season has come to an end, Segura thinks the Bulldogs made progress.

“They get discouraged a little bit when they come in and compete against these higher-level teams,” she said. “But if they’re improving and getting their best times, that’s all I can ask for.”