Back In Their Own Pool, Newtown Swim Team’s Goal: Top-Three In SWC

By Andy Hutchison

Last season, first-year Newtown High School girls’ swim coach Zach Gauvin was shooting for a top-three finish in the South-West Conference championships. The NHS swimming and diving team ended up sixth, and lost a dozen-or-so team members to graduation. Despite all of that, Gauvin has the same lofty goal of being among the top three in the conference in 2011.

“I’m always trying to aim high with our goals for the season. This year I feel we’re much better equipped to attain top-three in SWCs. I think we might be at the same level as the Pomperaugs and Brookfields of the world, and I think this year the girls also believe that they can really get it done. So I’m really excited about trying to get in there and improve on where we were last year,” Gauvin said.

It’s not to say the season can’t be a success if NHS doesn’t finish so close to the top. “If we improve on sixth I’ll be happy, but I’m really thinking we can get top-three this year,” the coach said.

Part of the reason for the confidence stems from the improved pool situation. Last season, due to school construction, the NHS swimmers had to trek to Oxford for practices and “home” meets. That resulted in the team’s daily three-hour practice windows getting sliced in half and NHS offset its in-water training with dryland workouts.

“We were pretty much a track team last year, and then we got in the pool for an hour-and-a-half,” Gauvin said. “That’s not to say we’re not doing a lot of running this year.”

The cross-training will continue, but the team stands to really gain the most from its increased pool time. “We have double the amount of training time,” Gauvin said. “You don’t realize how much of a luxury it is until you get it back.”

Gauvin, along with assistant coach Katherine Matz, and diving coach Ryan Cutler, will have more opportunities to work with the individual swimmers and divers who stand to better refine their strokes, dives, and overall endurance this fall thanks to the increased pool hours.

Senior captains are Megan Duero, Kelsey McEvoy, and Bianca Solano. Duero specializes in the backstroke competition, McEvoy in the sprint freestyle and butterfly events, and Solano is a utility swimmers whose best strokes are fly and individual medley.

Among other team members whom Gauvin is counting on for earning points in meets both this year and down the road are the team’s many juniors and freshmen. Junior breaststroker/IMer Zoe Eggleston and her sister, freshman IMer/distance free swimmer Eliza Eggleston and junior distance free swimmer Abby Fagerholm, and her sister, freshman breaststroker Annika Fagerholm bring plenty of skill to the team.

Freshmen Amy Martinelli, who swims the sprint free and IM events, and Amanda Mele, a sprint free/breaststroker, are among the other first-year swimmers Gauvin expects to make an immediate impact.

With so many new faces on the roster, the coach continued to watch his swimmers to put together his relay teams as the preseason winded down this week.

Diving is a strong suit of this team, just in numbers. Some schools don’t even have the three divers they need to earn as many possible points as they can in meets, whereas NHS has a “pool” of seven divers from which to lean on for possible points. Among the diving group is senior returnee Autumn Jones and sophomore Noelle Benson.

“I’m extremely excited, the attitude’s positive — I’m looking forward to the first meet,” Cutler said. “Since we’re going to have so much more pool time we’re going to be able to work with all of the kids a lot.”

Newtown is scheduled to begin the regular season on Friday, September 16, when their friends from Oxford visit the freshly-painted/brightened-up NHS pool for a 4 pm start. The Hawks will host each of their first three meets, including a September 20 clash with Brookfield and a September 23 meet with Joel Barlow of Redding. Defending SWC champion Pomperaug of Southbury visits on October 14.