The Aurora Greenmen swimming team’s reign as Suburban League American Conference champions is over. The boys’ team finished as runners-up with 299 points and the girls snagged fourth place with 320.5 points last Saturday at the University of Akron’s Ocasek Natatorium.
Kent Roosevelt swept the conference titles with the boys earning the conference banner by scoring 427 points and the girls taking first place with 472 points.
“It was a very competitive meet,” said Coach Anthony Telerico. “We were unaware of how much Kent Roosevelt managed to grow in the past short amount of time. They have lot of swimmers this year. It was a very young team and I think they will offer a very strong level of competition for the next few years because it is a very young team.”
The first-year coach acknowledged that Kent Roosevelt’s depth was too much for the Greenmen to overcome.
“When you start to get a quantity of swimmers that exceeds minimum quality expectations for certain events then you can start having a bit more leeway and freedom to start putting people into events and challenging them,” he added.
Despite yielding the conference title to the Rough Riders, the Aurora boys still outperformed the rest of the competition to finish in second place, fending off Revere by two points.
The quartet of seniors Xander Roy, Jaxson Rhea, Ben Mulvaney and junior Cameron Good captured fourth place in the 200-medley relay, clocking 1:52.06.
Freshman Elijah Shim came in 10th place in the 200-freestyle with a time of 2:10.52.
Good finished as the runner-up in the 200-individual medley at 2:06.79, followed Rhea who took 12th place with a time of 2:34.25 and sophomore Ari Bernat snagged 13th place by clocking 2:34.32.
Sophomore Zachary Best placed fifth in the 50-freestyle with a time of 25.65 seconds, followed Mulvaney who came in 10th at 26.08 seconds.
Senior Colten McCrae checked in at ninth place in the 100-butterfly with a time of 1:05.02, followed by Shim who took 10th with 1:05.83 and Mulvaney captured 11th place by clocking 1:06.44.
Roy placed third in the 100-freestyle by clocking 52.61 seconds, followed by sophomore Ari Bernat who came in 12th place with a time of 57.91 seconds.
Sophomore Colby Blaser came in 10th place in the 500-freestyle, stopping the clock at 6:16.56, followed by sophomore Lukas Paech who took 11th place at 6:29.33, sophomore Dominic Colello came in 13th place with a time of 6:47.08 and sophomore Connor Brodnick clinched 14th place at 6:49.68.
The team of Mulvaney, Best, Shim and Paech snagged fourth place in the 200-freestyle relay by clocking 1:45.05.
Good won the 100-backstroke, touching the wall at 56.90 seconds, followed by Roy who earned third place at 1:01.67 and Colello who came in 16th place by clocking 1:24.66.
Sophomore Andrew Mueller came in seventh place in the 100-backstroke with a time of 1:14.22, followed by Rhea who took eighth place at 1:14.26 and Paech snagged 13th place with a time of 1:17.95.
Roy, Good, Rhea and Shim teamed up to take second place in the 400-freestyle relay, clocking a time of 3:37.67.
On the girls’ side, the Greenmen had more depth, but Telerico acknowledged that his squad’s underclassmen showed their youth in the individual races.
The quartet of seniors Annabelle Reece, Ollie Salgado, sophomores Hannah Rapko and Kelsey Krizansky finished as the runners-up in the 200-medley relay with a time of 2:00.64. Salgado took second place in the 200-freestyle by clocking 2:09.03.
Reece placed second in the 200-individual medley at 2:28.28, followed by Krizansky who captured fourth place with a time of 2:31.30.
Senior Alexandra Yuhasz captured ninth place in the 50-freestyle by clocking 30.12 seconds, followed by junior Stella Seiler who tied for 12th place with Rough Riders’ freshman Ellie Amodio with a time of 30.39 seconds.
Reece won the 100-butterfly with a time of 1:03.92, followed by Rapko who took ninth place at 1:21.78, junior Lyla Stock clinched 11th place in 1:26.60 and freshman Teagan McCrae snagged 15th place with a time of 1:43.81.
“We had a nice butterfly from Annabelle and the other girls I decided to put in that event in Lila, Hannah and Teagan” added Telerico. “Teagan is freshman that is very passionate about butterfly. She has actually taken up the reins and said, hey I want to do butterfly so she has done that for the past few meets so I am very happy with that.
Freshman Katie Hunter placed 12th in the 100-freestyle by clocking 1:04.95.
Salgado took fourth place in the 500-freestyle with a time of 5:46.29, followed by Yuhasz who clinched fifth place at 6:07.50, freshman Kendall Leigh earned 10th place with a time of 6:36.23 and freshman Alex Kercheff came in 14th place by clocking 7:48.65.
Freshman Elena Mighton teamed up with Rapko, Hunter and Yuhasz to take fifth place in the 200-freestyle relay with a time of 1:54.65.
Rapko captured seventh place in the 100-freestyle by clocking 1:12.34, followed by Stock taking 11th place with a time of 1:16.25 and Hunter clinching 12th place at 1:16.95.
Krizansky placed second in the 100-breaststroke by clocking 1:11.26.
The quartet of Reece, Yuhasz, Salgado and Krizansky earned second place in the 400-freestyle with a time of 3:59.04
Following a home dual meet against Kent Roosevelt on Wednesday, Aurora will compete in the Northeast Classic at Canton McKinley’s C.T. Branin Natatorium on Saturday beginning at 7 a.m.
