Few teams have enjoyed the type of success that Yorktown girls swimming and diving has in the National District over the district’s nearly two decade history. This year was no different, as the Patriot ladies (7-0) won their 19th consecutive National District championship by nearly 300 points, over second-place Washington-Lee.
Yorktown poses with district championship plaque (photo by Wayne Stocks)
Yorktown’s dominance was complete, returning every single girl swimmer from Friday night’s prelims to the ‘A’ final, and winning all three relays.
In a much closer decision, Washington-Lee’s boys’ team was able to beat Yorktown to repeat as district champions, winning 404 to 399. Falls Church girls’ and boys’ finished third. Complete results here.
As Yorktown’s girls asserted themselves on the district, no individual swimmer was more impressive than Falls Church’s Laura Schwartz, who continued to show why she’s one of the best all-around swimmers in the Northern Region.
The Falls Church junior cruised in the 100 butterfly, winning in 57.60 over a trio of Yorktown girls, who placed second through fourth. The 100 breaststroke would be more of the same for Schwartz, who was untouchable, winning easily with a time of 1:07.24.
Stephanie Romano impressed all night with two individual wins in the 200 and 500 free. (photo by Wayne Stocks)
Senior Stephanie Romano and junior Abigail Young were the big point scorers for the Yorktown ladies. Romano cruised in the 200 freestyle (1:58.77) and 500 freestyle (5:15.58), winning both by wide margins.
Young had a slightly tougher race in the 200 IM. Laura Schwartz’s sister, freshman Julia Schwartz, gave chase in the first 100 yards, but could not hang with the Yorktown swimmer in the breaststroke, who won 2:15.10 to 2:17.71. Young would beat J. Schwartz convincingly in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:00.13 to 1:03.71.
While Yorktown’s stars shined brightly, it was the overwhelming consistency of the Patriot girls that was so impressive, particularly their fantastic class of freshmen girls.
Lauren Allard won the 100 freestyle (56.45) and placed third in the 100 breaststroke (1:13.16).
Kirby Nassetta placed second in the 200 freestyle (2:02.79) and 100 butterfly (59.71).
Sydney Stocks took third in the 50 freestyle in 25.81, behind the events winner, junior teammate Ellie Belilos (25.37). Falls Church’s Haley McLean was second (25.80).
Amanda Didawick was third in the 100 butterfly behind Nassetta. Sophomore Grace Greenwood was second behind Romano in the 500 freestsyle (5:32.10).
Izzy Pasternak was third in the 100 backstroke in 1:04.10, just beating Didawick (1:04.70).
On Thursday night, Hayfield’s Anise Muir won the girls’ diving event with a score of 323.10. But was followed by Yorktown’s Mason Nassetta (312.35) and Elena Bavolack (311.25).
That sort of depth is what will make Yorktown so competitive next week against the likes of Langley, Woodson, and Oakton at the AAA Northern Region championship meet at Oakmarr RECenter.
For the boys, Washington-Lee began their championship run with a win from Carl Buergler. He was in a class of his own, posting a score of 514.25, beating Yorktown’s Hunter Simmons (357.55) and Falls Church’s Tyler Smith (309.95).
It was a total team effort for the Generals, who won despite not winning a single event all night. What they lacked in star power, they made up in depth. The Generals took second in all three boys’ relays and returned at least three swimmers for Saturday night’s final in all but one event.
They also got some help from Stuart and Hayfield’s superstars, who kept Yorktown from taking top points in several events.
Stuart’s Christian Rowcliffe won both the 50 freestyle (22.57) and 100 freestyle (48.40). Ben Lambert (Hayfield) took second in 22.87. Lambert would later win the 100 butterfly (53.36). Yorktown’s Max Fish would place second in butterfly with a 54.11.
Stuart senior Eli Bass won a close race in the 200 IM (2:02.22) against Yorktown’s Will Tarkenton (2:02.79) and Hayfield’s Joel DeSatnick (2:02.84).
After falling behind Bass and Tarkenton, DeSatnick roared back in the breaststroke to take the lead. It was not enough though, as Bass surged in the freestyle to snatch the win from the Hayfield junior.
DeSatnick would get his chance to shine, however, as he won the 100 breaststroke in 1:00.95 over Fish (1:01.50).
Bass would get a second win in the 500 freestyle where he swam to an easy win in a time of 4:54.68. Washington-Lee’s Michael Emanuel gave chase in the first 200, but faded to second (5:09.83), as Bass sailed into the finish, 15 seconds ahead.
It was a dogfight in the boys’ 100 backstroke between Tarkenton, Jay Delancey (W-L), and James Sturges (Falls Church). The Yorktown senior, Tarkenton, got the better of the two sophomores, winning in 56.17. Delancey was second in 56.74; Sturges third in 57.24.
The AAA Northern Region championship meet gets started on Tuesday, Jan. 31, with girls’ diving. Boys’ diving will follow the next night, Feb. 1. Swimming relims this year will be split up, with the girls on Thursday and the boys on Friday. Finals will take place Saturday night with two heats in each event.
Read more about the 2012 High School Championship meet season here.
Tags: 2012 High School Championship Meets, AAA Northern Region, Abigail Young, Amanda Didawick, Anise Muir, Ben Lambert, Carl Buergler, Christian Rowcliffe, Elena Bavolack, Eli Bass, Ellie Belilos, Falls Church, Grace Greenwood, Hayfield, Hunter Simmons, Izzy Pasternak, James Sturges, Jay Delancey, Joel DeSatnick, Julia Schwartz, Kirby Nassetta, Laura Schwartz, Lauren Allard, Mason Nassetta, Max Fish, National District, Oakton High School, Stephanie Romano, Stuart, Sydney Stocks, Tyler Smith, Virginia High School Swimming, Washington-Lee, Will Tarkenton, Yorktown
stats corner
Stephanie Romano finished with a 5:15.58 in the 500 not a 5:19.01
Two long standing National District records were broken at the meet. In Boys Diving, Carl Buergler from W-L scored 514.25 points and broke the 1996 record of 476.95 held by Chris Alderman from Yorktown. The Boys 400 Free Relay team from Stuart (Eli Bass, Marco Perdomo, Eric Mioduski, Christian Rowcliffe) swam a 3:19.19 to break the 1998 record of 3:20.37 held by Mount Vernon (it is believed that this Mount Vernon relay team included Marcus Rogan, Austrian Olympic swimmer).
Hey, Bryan Flaherty – Hayfield Secondary’s Joel DeSatnick is a JUNIOR, Ben Lambert is the Hayfield freshman. I realize that’s a niggling detail about “just” two kids from one of “those” schools in the National District – in contrast to the breathless excitement with which you write about the Yorktown, W-L, Stuart and Falls Church teams – but having read your material on reachforthewall.com for sometime now has convinced me that you (and ideally, someone else) REALLY should proof your work more thoroughly prior to posting. Also, I think at least a mention of the Mount Vernon and Wakefield teams’ participation in the meet was merited at SOME point in your article…those two particular teams might not be stacked with “superstars,” but their kids showed up and swam with as much heart as anyone else this past weekend.
Thank you for the correction, Mike. The meet results I originally received had Joel listed as a freshman. Regardless of what the meet sheet says next week, I will know who is who next week in what I hope is an errata free weekend. Again, I appreciate your input on the content of the site. While you may disagree, the write up is intended to focus on great individual performances, and the omission of any team, as often happens with so many teams swimming each and every week, was not intended to disparage or undervalue the efforts of the swimmers and coaches on those teams. Meet results are posted, and our readers are encouraged to peruse the complete results that include team scores and swimmers times from every team.
Hey Mike Lambert,
How much infomation have YOU PERSONALLY SENT to reach for the wall? Bryan has an incredible amount of information to sift through and is trying to get recaps of all championship meets in the day after the meets. I don’t see you mentioning any of those swimmers from Wakefield or Mount Vernon. All you did was complain, and point out that someone’s year was listed incorrectly. You can’t mention every single swimmer. There were plenty of swimmers in the top 5 of events, in every district, that weren’t mentioned. He is trying to write a recap, NOT a novel. He even posted the link to the full results.
Thanks Jeff Wolla for pointing out the record set by the Stuart boys. I recognize that Bryan has a big job recapping all the swim meets and many teams that participate, but not recognizing a record breaking relay that has lasted 14 years was an oversight. Stuart certainly doesn’t get nearly the coverage of Yorktown or W-L either. While W-L won the boy’s meet, it should be pointed out that the Stuart boys took FIRST in 5 of the 8 individual events and two of the three relays–with only 7 boys swimming! That to me is a bigger deal than Wakefield’s overall victory.
Bryan — Understood, and if you received information in error regarding Joel, I apologize for my outburst. I realize you only have so much room on these recaps before they get novel-sized and that the individual performances take precedence, however, I do think it’s important to mention all teams participating in a district competition, even if in passing. Kudos to you for indeed getting these write-ups posted within 24 hours of the events’ conclusions.
NovaSwimCoach — While I don’t owe any justification to you, the apparent arbiter of all that is right and politically correct on reachforthewall.com (as any Google site search on your oh-so-anonymous handle will attest), I have in fact submitted both stats and corrections for at least a few NVSL-related meets over the last couple years on RFTW. I would tell you to lighten up, but several other commenters on RFTW have already shared that sentiment with you. I know what Bryan must comb through in terms of stats and info to write the recaps. However, for those high schools whose teams may only have one or two stand-out swimmers, the details are pretty important to them — and really, the details are important no matter how large or small or talented or struggling ANY swim team is.
I imagine as a self-proclaimed Woodson HS *AND* club coach, you very likely take NO issue with the coverage that you and yours routinely receive here at reachforthewall.com – though that certainly hasn’t stopped YOU from chiming in when you felt your team was shortchanged, and I quote you from 2/16/10: “Let’s not forget Woodson’s being right behind Langley and Robinson, Kevin Vest’s 2nd and 3rd place finishes, and 2 relays with AAC times.”
You DO realize the incredible amount of information that these writers have to sift through, DON’T YOU, NovaSwimCoach? Yep, it must be pretty lonely up there on Mount Olympus…
Very nice coverage overall Bryan! It is appreciated.
Yes Mike, but there is a difference between pointing out things that have been overlooked and going straight after Bryan (or the individuals running the site in the past). I didn’t have an issue with what Jeff Wolla wrote, and in fact, I thought it was great that he included it. Who I coach for is irrelevant. I have also coached for much smaller teams. I submit information on teams other than my own, and to your point, MOST of the corrections that I send in are done by e-mail rather than on here. There’s nothing wrong with adding information and I’m sure it’s appreciated. Bryan has done a great job at improving the coverage on this site and I appreciate all of it (not just concerning the teams that I coach). I don’t know if you realize it or not (and meaning that in a sincere way), but a lot of the information that Bryan posts each week comes from coaches and parents who submit summaries etc… I do not wish to argue back and forth on this forum. We both could have made our points in a different/better manner. Let’s just leave it at that.