LAWRENCE: Lawrence swimmers fall short in bid to repeat

By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
   PRINCETON — The Lawrence High School boys swimming team final week in the pool saw a swing almost as dramatic as their season-long improvement.
   Unfortunately, the swing this time was the other direction. The fourth-seeded Cardinals came up short, 98-72, at top-seeded Princeton High School in Monday’s Central Jersey B Division semifinals. The defending sectional champions had hoped for a chance to repeat after pulling out an 86-84 win over Nottingham in last Wednesday’s first-round matchup.
   ”It’s unbelievable to have the highest point in the season last week against Nottingham and then this,” said LHS coach Mike Underwood, whose boys finish 11-5 this year. “It was a fantastic meet against Nottingham. It came down to the last relay and we won by two. And then a week later we come here with a bunch of guys on a trip and Princeton was just a better team than we were today and it showed on the scoreboard and it showed in the water. I’m proud of my guys, but they were very good.”
   Lawrence would not have gotten there, however, if it weren’t for some incredible swims to avenge a season of losing to Nottingham.
   ”They beat us three times,” Underwood said. “They beat us in the regular season in the dual meet, they beat us at the Hornet Relays and they also beat us at counties, so it was a really, really, really great meet. All of our guys swam out of their minds. Their guys swam the best. I said, we pushed them and they pushed us to the furthest either team could go. It came down to the last relay and we saw some heroics and were able to pull it out. It was awesome.”
   Jon Cohl won the 100 breaststroke and Ed Zeng was third to help the Cardinals battle back from one final deficit against Nottingham to tie it, 78-78. That set the stage for the dramatic 400 free relay.
   ”I just looked at them all and I said, whoever wins this event wins,” Underwood said. “Are you going to let them take it right now? They looked at me and said, absolutely not. They didn’t disappoint.”
   Bobby Bostock, Sam Sciarra and Luke Yamammoto swam the first three legs before Josh McGrew touched out Nottingham for the win that pushed the Cardinals into the sectional semifinals.
   ”I score out most meets,” Underwood said. “I look at what they have and I look at what we have, I score it out and I get a pretty good idea of what it’s going to be. This is the first time this whole season I did not score it out because I didn’t want to know how close or how far it was going to be. It was a roller coaster.”
   McGrew’s push to the end provided just the second win on the day. Cohl had the other, but Lawrence’s depth never let Nottingham get far ahead. And ultimately, like in the relay, LHS caught up with the North Stars this season.
   ”That’s gratifying,” Underwood said. “It’s gratifying to see we won as a team, by getting second, third and fourth in almost every single individual event. We only won two — the last relay and we won breaststroke. To have enough depth to keep in the meet and at the very end have a heroic swim by Jon Cohl in breaststroke and my 400 free relay anchored by Josh McGrew, the place was going crazy. It was a lot of fun.
   ”It was confidence and just extra training,” he added of the turnaround. “We got better as the season went on and they had a lot of club swimmers who were already at their peak when we swam them the first time couple times. We were finally in swimming shape and both teams were very, very equal. And we were lucky there was one disqualification that they got and it really helped us out.”
   The sixth-seeded Cardinal girls could not overcome being shorthanded as well as they lost, 100-70, to third-seeded West Windsor-Plainsboro North on Saturday. The Cardinals had lost to the Knights, 105-65, in the first meet of the season.
   ”We had the meet scheduled three different times,” said Underwood, whose girls finished 8-5 this season. “Each time it got pushed further back, I had less and less girls that were available to go because of other prior commitments.
   ”Once we did swim, I went over there with a skeleton crew, but I’m very proud of my girls. From the first meet to this meet, we actually scored more points with less girls. A loss is a loss, but in the scheme things, we did better than we did at the beginning of the season. That’s the measure of a good season. I can’t be too upset.”
   Underwood felt the same way about the Cardinals seasons. From the start to the end, he saw the sort of improvement that he preaches from Day One.
   ”You end the seasons with losses, so that’s tough to swallow,” he said, “But I don’t think our boys or our girls were expected to do as well as we did in the county. We overachieved. Every one of them came to practice every single day with the frame of mind, I’m going to get better, and every one of them did. As a coach, I’m very proud of my boys and girls. I couldn’t have asked for anything more this season.”