D’Aguillo making impact in first year
By: Justin Feil
It only seems as though Michelle D’Aguillo is swimming every minute of the day.
In actuality, she also does have time for eating, sleeping and school. But swimming does seem to supercede everything else.
"It’s pretty much seven days a week if I have a Saturday meet," the 15-year-old said. "It can be pretty overwhelming."
But D’Aguillo wouldn’t be swimming every free minute she had if she didn’t love it. She’s one Montgomery High’s outstanding freshmen who’s helping make the girls’ swimming team just a little more competitive.
D’Aguillo and the Cougars won for the seventh time in eight meets when they defeated South Brunswick, 114-56, Friday. Thursday, they slipped by Franklin. The boys split, winning Thursday against Franklin and losing Friday to South Brunswick.
In Friday’s meet, D’Aguillo won the 100 butterfly and was fourth in the 50 free. She also was a part of the winning 200 and 400 free relays.
"I can put her in anything and she’ll give me points," said MHS head coach Claire Scarpa. "She swam the 50 free, then there was a break and she swam the 100 fly. In the 100 free Thursday, she got second to Elyssa Romino."
Romino, another freshman, won the 200 free Friday and was a part of the winning medley and 400 free relays. Jennifer Lin, yet another freshman, won the 100 backstroke and was a part of the winning medley relay.
"They’re a very big influence on our team," Scarpa said of the freshmen. "I have another good class coming in next year, for boys and for girls."
Being a freshman member of the swim team is a little easier for D’Aguillo than being a freshman on the MHS field hockey team in the fall was.
"Everybody’s really nice," D’Aguillo said of the upperclass swimmers. "With field hockey, we always had to carry all the stuff and got picked on. It’s easier with swimming. We don’t have any water to carry.
"There are a lot of good freshman," she added. "That’s helped our team a lot. And we’re all working together."
Next fall, D’Aguillo will be one of the upperclassmen doing the good-natured ribbing on the field hockey field, but her main focus remains in the pool.
"I started swimming competitively when I was 7," she said. "Now I swim for the Hillsborough Hurricanes. I’ve done that since I was 9. Before that, I was at the Somerset Valley Y."
It seems like the best place to find D’Aguillo is in the pool. With three meets in the last three days she had one for the Hurricanes on Saturday it’s where she’s seemingly spent all of her time. That’s paid off with her improvement.
"She’s still improving," Scarpa said. "She’s even better than I had hoped and her times keep going down. She works really hard in practice.
"Almost all the new (contributors) are year-round swimmers," she added. "It’s not that they’re more dedicated, but they’re getting more practice time when we don’t have practice. They started swimming back in September and some of them trained last spring and in the summer time. We didn’t have any practice over the winter break and we went back to square one with some of them."
Not D’Aguillo nor many of the Cougars best swimmers. They were able to pick right up where they left off.
"I did train with my YMCA team," she said. "A lot of people weren’t able to. But it seemed like everybody got back into it quickly."
The Cougars have actually looked like a stronger team since the break. As might any team with several key freshmen on it, the Cougars struggled in the early going. MHS was 0-3 in their first three meets before going on their recent hot stretch.
"At first it was new for a lot of us, for a lot of the freshmen," D’Aguillo said. "We didn’t know what it was going to be like. Then we started to come together as a team and we started swimming against teams more at our level. It’s been more competitive.
"Everybody has been improving individually. And we’ve become more of a team."
And when talented Cougars such as D’Aguillo improve, it makes it hard on the competition. MHS will try to win its eighth out of nine meets when it swims at Metuchen 3:30 p.m. Thursday. Saturday, the Cougars face some of their toughest competition of the season in the Somerset County Championships.
"Those are coming up so I’ve been forced to think about them," D’Aguillo said of the Somerset County and Skyland Conference Championships. "I think it’s going to be a good experience. People are going to be older than me, so I can see how much I can improve.
"Normally (tougher competition) helps. When you’re in the atmosphere of a bigger meet, you’re motivated to swim your best. Also, with everybody coming together for you, it helps."
D’Aguillo hopes to do well in her best event, the 100 fly, which she’ll also swim at the Skyland Conference meet. In the Somerset County meet, Scarpa expects that D’Aguillo will compete in the 50 free, while she could do the 100 free for the Skyland Conferences. She’ll do relays in both meets as well.
"With her times," Scarpa said in citing a 1:05 in the fly, "I definitely think she’ll be able to place in the Top 10 in the fly.
"I usually put her where we need her. It depends where we need points. I try not to put her in the 50 free and then the fly since they’re back-to-back. Sometimes, I’ll put her in the IM and the fly. Fly is by far her best, but she’s solid in everything else too. I know she likes the 100 free a lot, but I can’t put her in that after she swims the fly."
Too many events in a row? For Michelle D’Aguillo, who seemingly spends more time in the pool than out of it, it doesn’t seem possible.

