BY WAYNE WITKOWSKI
Staff Writer
Lauren Prindiville is finding that success is coming quickly for her on Brick Memorial’s girls swim team.
Only a sophomore, Prindiville this year set two individual school records and swam on three record-setting relays, and is less than a second from the school record in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke, which is one of her favorite events.
Prindiville also swims for the Atlantic Club, one of only two girls swimmers on the high school teams in town to swim for that club (Corey Serafin, of Brick Township, is the other). So impressive is her season that Prindiville qualified in five events for the Shore Conference championships, where she will compete again this year on Saturday at the Ocean County YMCA.
“I’m really happy with my season,” said Prindiville. “The team is close. We’re good friends and have a lot of fun. We get together at the diner after meets. The team usually has cliques, but not this year. We’re all really good friends.”
Her events include the IM, where she holds a Brick Memorial record 2:13.55; the 500, where she swam to a school record 6:14.09; the 200 free, where she has a personal best 2:17.55; the butterfly, in which she has clocked a 1:13.33; and the breaststroke, in which she holds a 1:18.95 personal best.
Prindiville also has swum on the 200 medley relay (2:09.13) and the 200 free relay (1:54.83) that set school records as well as the 400 free relay.
She is one of four Brick Memorial qualifiers for the Shore Conference championship meet. Senior Samantha Wieboldt qualified in four events, including the 100 freestyle, where she swam a school record 1:01.8; the 50 free (28); the breaststroke (1:18.62) and the individual medley, where she swam a 2:36.08 while swimming it only once this season. Senior Erica Picatagi qualified for the Shore Conference meet in the sprint freestyles (27.76 in the 50 and 1:02.40 in the 100), and soph Demi Dooros qualified in the butterfly (1:14.71).
Serafin for Brick Township qualified in the two sprint freestyles — 50 and 100 yards — and Briana Paolillo qualified in the 100 freestyle and breaststroke for the Shore Conference championships.
Because swimmers can only compete in two events, Prindiville had an easy choice for her two — the individual medley and the butterfly, the same as the two she swam in last year in the Shore Conference championship meet when she did not place. Actually, it is her proficiency in the butterfly that has made her such a strong swimmer in the IM.
“I’m a breaststroker. That’s the third part of the IM when people start to die out,” she said. “I’m really close to the school record in the breaststroke and I’d like to get that record. I hope to do better in both of those events at the Shore Conference meet this year.”
It hasn’t come easily for her and her teammates. Like the other three high school swim teams in town — Brick Memorial’s boys team, and the Brick Township girls and boys teams — Brick Memorial’s girls team has to travel to Ocean County Community College’s pool in Toms River for practices, many of them ending at 10:15 p.m. It’s even worse in bad weather.
“There are nights I don’t get back [to school] on the bus until 11, and sometimes it’s really hard,” said Prindiville. “I’d like to have a pool closer, and I know they’re talking about that in town.”
A meeting of township officials on Tuesday considered the possibility of a recreation center and pool being built at the Foodtown site.
“There’s been talk about that around town,” said coach Todd Estelle, whose sentiments were echoed by the other coaches, including Don McCarrick of Brick Memorial’s boys team. “It takes a toll on the kids and the coaches. I’m not complaining because it [coaching] is my job. I just don’t know if my parents would have let me swim and come in late like that. We’ve lost some kids [from the team] because of that and it has detracted from the season.
“People need to know how hard working and dedicated these kids are,” said Estelle. “Out of all of the teams in Ocean County, we’re the only schools [Brick Township and Brick Memorial] that don’t have a community pool in town. The only thing that helped us is when Jackson dropped out of practices at Ocean County College, which allowed us some earlier practice times.”
But that has not impeded the efforts of the girls team that has won two meets and had many close losses in what young swimmer Prindiville says is “the best season the team has had in recent years.”
“We have been dropping personal times all season, and this is our best year as far as that goes,” said Estelle, who had to rebuild with 13 seniors graduating from last year’s team, and only four seniors and two juniors on this year’s young squad. “We have only 11 swimmers back, so the majority of our 24 swimmers are new to the team.”
Leading the way in that regard is freshman Megan Heim, who has dropped 15 seconds off her time in the 50 freestyle over the past two months to a 29.98. Freshman Kelly Daly also dropped about 15 seconds off her time in that event, says Estelle, to a 31.93.
Estelle also singled out commendable times turned in by senior Stephanie McClelland in the butterfly (1:22.24) and the backstroke (1:22.26); sophomore Sarah Guthrie in the 50 (:30.14) and 100 (1:08.11) freestyles; and soph Danielle Kellner in the butterfly (1:27.04). Kellner also has swum well in the IM and breaststroke.
Also earning praise from Estelle for their contributions are senior Nicolette Cassella in the 500; junior freestylers Casey Ross, Dana Englert and Ashley Pellecchia; and sophomores Lindsey Mendaro and Nicole Atrashewski in the backstroke and 100 free, and Nicole Altilio and Brittany Jasperse (Lindsay’s twin sister) in the freestyles. There also are freshmen Erin Muir in the breaststroke, IM and butterfly, Danielle Kieffer in the breaststroke and freestyles, and Karrina Caola and Jessica Trion in the freestyles.