MHS girls dominate, Lewinson defends
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
SEWELL — Some big sacrifices paid off in big wins for the Montgomery High School girls swimming team as well as West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s Rebecca Lewinson.
Cougars freshman Megan Lydzinski won four events while setting four meet records to help send out happy three senior teammates, while Lewinson won her third straight 100 breaststroke title at the Meet of Champions on Sunday.
”We expected to do well,” Lydzinski said, “but this is definitely surprising — meet records, I think we got a pool record or two. That was surprising.
”It was our seniors’ last meet and we wanted to go out good and give it all we’ve got and that’s what we did. We got it done.”
The last race may have been the toughest. The Cougars were seventh after Gwen Comollo’s leg of the 400 freestyle relay and fifth after Kara Dubiel’s second leg before the third of three seniors in the relay, Courtney Raw, dove in and produced the fastest relay split of the day, 50.84 seconds, before giving way to Lydzinski, who anchored in 50.56 for the record-breaking 3:30.19 relay. Raw’s time stood up as second-best only to her teammate.
”Courtney was amazing,” Lydzinski said. “She blasted away. Gwen did good. Kara held on and got a little ahead and I had confidence in Courtney, but that was a pretty wide gap. I wasn’t losing hope, but I was a little worried.
”When I saw Courtney coming back on her last leg, I just wanted to give it all I had and I didn’t look at anyone else. I was just staring at the bottom of the pool all the way back in.”
Raw had earlier elected to withdraw from the 100 backstroke, even though she had the second-best preliminary swim in it Saturday.
”I knew if I did the backstroke, even with a little more time, it would take me a really long time to recover and I’d be too tired,” Raw said. “Backstroke is my event and I do love swimming it, but I really wanted to do this for my team and have the three state records and the wins.”
Raw also swam an incredible 50 free leg for the 200 free relay that contained the same team members and won in 1:36.45, less than three-tenths ahead of Immaculate Heart. Raw’s 23.30 split was second only to Lydzinski’s 23.13 anchor leg among all swimmers.
”I have this weird mental block,” Raw said. “I hate losing. I try so much harder when I’ve got to catch up ground.”
Raw’s day began with the winning 200 medley relay and with her leg, the Cougars never had to catch up. Her 26.59 split was the fastest backstroke leg of the day, and combined with freshman Anna Marshall, Lydzinski and Comollo to produce a meet-record 1:46.90, six-tenths of a second faster than Lewinson’s second-place Pirates, who also broke the old meet record.
”It’s such a great way to finish,” Raw said. “It’s such a great end to everything. I’m just happy we did so well.”
Lydzinski, too, had to make a sacrifice. She gave up the chance to swim the 50 free for individual gold — and in the process lost the state’s top time of the season by one-hundredth of a second — in order to swim the three relays and the 100 freestyle.
”It wasn’t a very hard decision for me,” she said. “As much as I like the 50, I like the 100 a little better so I went with that one. There was no choice not to do the relays. I thought about it, but in the end, being with my team, especially for high school, I wanted to be with them and give them a last send-off.”
As a bonus, they cheered her on as she set a new record of 50.40 to win the 100 free individual gold. It was a new personal best for her.
”That was a very unselfish move and with Courtney scratching in the backstroke, they both put the team first,” said MHS head coach Claire Scarpa. “That’s what I’ve been telling them all season long and they really are a team. It’s just the icing on the cake. It’s awesome. You can’t beat it. It almost beats the state championship. Almost.
”Gwen also hasn’t been practicing all week. She came home early from her Senior Trip. Courtney and Kara didn’t go. That’s another totally unselfish move for the team. Without Gwen, they couldn’t have done it. That’s another person who made a huge sacrifice for this team. As much as she didn’t want to come home, she did.”
Lewinson probably could have used some time off as well. After swimming through the Pirates’ run to the A Division state championship, she had to come back one week later to try to defend her breaststroke title. She did with a personal-best 1:04.51, just ahead of Mount St. Mary’s Stephanie Ferrell.
”I really don’t know what happened (in the race),” Lewinson said. “I just said to give it your best shot and I was able to pull it off. At the end I was dying. I was really hoping they were dying too.
”I really didn’t feel good at all. I’m not going to lie. It felt good after. I was surprised I was able to pull off that time. That’s my best time ever.”
Lewinson’s Pirate teammate Meredith Ketchmark finished seventh in the 100 free as the only other area swimmer in the top eight of an event. They combined with Brynja Winnan and Jocelyn Yuen for third in the 400 free. Cori Michibata, Lewinson, Yuen and Winnan were second in the medley relay, just behind a Montgomery team that was just starting its gold-medal day.
”I was hoping for one title and we got four,” Scarpa said. “So this is amazing.”

