Hopewell Valley swimming
By: John E. Powers
The New Year started in the best way possible for the Hopewell Valley Central High School boys and girls swimming teams. The Bulldogs scored a 123-45 co-ed win over Trenton on Tuesday at The Pennington School with just about everybody contributing.
The win, credited to the boys’ record, gave the Bulldogs a 1-5 record. The boys and girls were scheduled to swim at Hightstown on Thursday and then compete against Hamilton on Tuesday afternoon at Pennington.
"We were impressed with Trenton," Hopewell Valley coach Laura Gordon said. "We thought they looked stronger and had improved so much. Their swimmers looked very good."
But so did the Bulldogs.
"The nice thing about this meet is that it gave us an opportunity to learn about kids who don’t usually get to compete individually," Gordon said. "It gave the kids a break from the stuff they usually do, and it gave us the chance to get some of the younger kids some of the less-experienced kids an opportunity. It was a great way to start the new year."
Gordon said one of the examples was allowing the DeLuca brothers sophomore Vince and senior Jeff an opportunity to swim the butterfly. Jeff DeLuca won the 100-yard butterfly at 1:12.31 with his brother right behind.
"They have been duking it out in practice," Gordon said. "It was fun for them."
Hopewell won the 200 medley relay with Billy Dunne, Dan Gaynor, Will Armington and Vince DeLuca posting a time of 2:13.49. Wes Purvis won the 200 freestyle at 2:11.79, and Maddie Jacobs took the 200 IM and 100 backstroke. Meg Angelastro won the 100 breaststroke in 1:29.80. Mary Pat DeHaven, Greg Stolowski, Christian Baumbach and Catherine Brookes won the 400 freestyle relay in 4:16.44, and Baumbach took the 500 freestyle at 6:56.15. Cael Sutherland, Meg Colesanti, Purvis and Katie Strode won the 200 freestyle relay (1:56.32).