By Kim J. Harmon

NEW HAVEN – A school record and a No. 1 seed.

How is that for starting off the CIAC Class L swim championships?

The Newtown High School swim team – somewhat fresh off a fourth-place finish at the South-West Conference championship meet back on March 3 in Monroe – set themselves up for the CIAC Class L championship finals on Wednesday with a solid showing last Saturday at the trials at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven.

The 400 freestyle relay team of sophomore Anthony Fiore, freshman Brendan Deveney, sophomore Stefan Toi and senior Max Barrett claimed the top seed with a school-record 3:24.16 finish.

Fiore started off with a 52.58 split in the first 100 followed by Deveney at 51.11 in the second 100, Toi at 51.11 in the third 100 and Barrett at a blistering 49.36 in the final 100.

The Nighthawk foursome finished a little over a second-and-a-half ahead of Cheshire and nearly three seconds ahead of Farmington.

That same Newtown foursome started out the trials with a fourth-place finish in the 200 medley relay at 1:43.90 … about a second-and-a-half behind front-running Simsbury.

Meanwhile, Deveney also qualified third in the 200 individual medley with a 2:03.25 finish, less than a half-second behind Alessandro Acosta of Simsbury, while Barrett also qualified fourth in the 50 freestyle at 22.75 and sixth in the 100 freestyle at 50.45, both times about a second-and-a-half behind Richard Ulatowski of Notre Dame of West Haven.

But the ‘Hawks were, perhaps, at their strongest in the 100 backstroke as Fiore qualified fifth at 57.53 and Deveney qualified sixth at 57.54 … both a little over two seconds behind Aaron Rocheleau of Newington.

In other events –

Toi qualified eighth in the 200 individual medley at 2:05.76 and eighth in the 100 butterfly at 56.51; Nick Maurer qualified 13th in the 100 butterfly at 57.55; Fiore qualified 12th at 2:09.24 in the 200 individual medley; Zack Moliver qualified ninth at 58.32 in the 100 backstroke and 18th at 2:11.24 in the 200 individual medley; Scott Whalley qualified 26th (1:59.81) and Kevin Herring 35th (2:01.66) in the 200 freestyle; the 200 freestyle relay foursome of Jeff Bonaccorso, Herring, Maurer and Whalley qualified 11th at 1:38.02; Mike Parker qualified 19th in the 100 backstroke at 1:01.23; Allen Hubbard qualified 18th in the 100 breaststroke at 1:08.72.

The CIAC State Open will be held Saturday, March 18, at Yale University in New Haven.