Westfield senior Alison Johnstone competes in the girls’ 200-yard individual medley during Tuesday’s meet with Longmeadow. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – The always tough Longmeadow Lancers came to the Whip City Tuesday night and gave the Westfield High School swim teams a run for its money.
Despite heroic efforts by the Lancers, the Bombers prevailed with the hometown girls and boys winning, 113-73 and 101-85, respectively.
The Westfield girls’ team of Kelsey Johnstone, Erin Lewis, Lauren Longley and Kiersten Rosso edged out Longmeadow by six-hundredths of a second to win the 200-yard medley relay. The boys’ team of John Dolan, Jim Stinehart, Nicholas Rosso and Slav Ptashuk flirted with the school record in their race and won this event handily.
Hope Walsh won the girls’ 200-yard freestyle in impressive style, finishing with all competitors half a pool length or more behind her. Roberto Morales won for the boys.
In the 200-yard individual medley, the Bomber trio of Erin Lewis, Alison Johnstone and Hayley Jurczyk finished first, second, and third, respectively, in the six-lane pool, allowing the team to outscore Longmeadow 13-3 in this event. Tim Kwarcinski secured first place for Westfield in the boys’ race.
Lauren Longley and Jim Stinehart won the girls’ and boys’ 50-yard freestyle races, both with state championship qualifying times.
Longmeadow won both the boys’ and girls’ 1-meter diving competition.
Through these early events, the Westfield girls had established a sizable lead, but despite the Westfield boys’ wins in the first five events, Longmeadow had taken several seconds, thirds and fourths, and trailed the Bombers by only two points.
Longmeadow sensations Jerrica Li and Justin Liu won the girls’ and boys’ 100-yard butterfly races. John Dolan won the 100-yard freestyle. In the 500-yard freestyle, the Westfield girls extended their lead by sweeping the 20-length endurance race with Hope Walsh, Samantha Dolan and Madison Stinehart. Roberto Morales won the boys’ race to preserve the Bomber boys’ narrow lead.
The Westfield girls broke the meet wide open in the 200-yard freestyle relay, outscoring the Lancers 12-2 in this event with the teams of Longley, Lewis, Johnstone, and Walsh taking first; and, Kiersten Rosso, Hannah Ditto, Rachel Charette, and Shaylyn Jurczyk taking second by 26 hundredths of a second.
The Westfield boys won their race with the team of Ptashuk, Dolan, Kwarcinski and Stinehart.
John Dolan helped the Bombers finish strong, winning the boys’ 100-yard backstroke race. In the last individual event – the 100-yard breaststroke – the Westfield girls produced their third sweep with Johnstone, Lewis and Charette taking the top three spots. Stinehart narrowly won the boys’ 100 breaststroke. The boys capped their 16-point win by edging out the Lancers by 35 hundredths of second in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
The Bombers will celebrate “senior night” when they take on Amherst in their final home meet of the season Friday evening at 5. – Courtesy of Mike Rowbotham
