By Rich Fisher, Sports Editor
Swimming is more back and forth than up and down, but that did not stop the South Brunswick High girls swim team from scaling new heights this season.
”It’s the best girls season ever,” said veteran coach John Harding. “Without a doubt the most successful season we’ve had.”
The Vikings finished 9-2, went to the state team tournament for the second time, had four girls qualify for the Meet of Champions and qualified a relay team at the MOC for the first time.
”They’ve been steadily improving for the last few years,” Harding said. “Last year we were 8-4, the year before that 8-3 and the year before that we were 5-6. So they’ve gone three years now where we’ve steadily shown improvement. And we’re only losing five seniors so we’ll bring back a good core of kids.”
Those seniors include Liz Samtur, Lauren Dai, Theresa Ha, Sarah Malinske and Katrina Low-Beer. Samtur and Dai were four-year members of the varsity, while the latter were three-year letter winners.
”They were a good group, they did a lot of over the years,” Harding said. “Especially Liz. She was a captain her senior year, and one of the top swimmers in the conference all four years.
”It sometimes got lost as to how well she did over the years, because of some other great swimmers. But she was one of the top swimmers in conference, especially in the butterfly.”
The coach also got strong contributions from his other four soon-to-be-graduates.
”Dai worked hard to become a good backstroker and I appreciated all the hard work she put,” Harding said. “Ha became a nice little distance swimmer for us, Malinske came out as a freshmen, kept working hard and became a good distance swimmer herself. Katrina did the same thing, worked and improved and became a good butterflyer.”
And while those five will be missed, Harding can’t wait to work with the talent he has coming back.
Sophomore Gess Charniga leads the list, as she became the first Viking girl to win a county championship, and also went to the state meet for the second time in as many years.
Charniga made All-GMC along with Samtur and juniors Abby Weingarten and Danielle Bartolotta. Making All-Red Division were Lisa Majchrzak, Socienski, Malinske, Samantha Sterner and Dai.
”We’re definitely getting a foundation going,” Harding said. “We’ve got some good young swimmers coming back and I’m getting e-mails from some of the girls in seventh and eight grade saying that they’re excited about swimming for us. It’s nice to know you have more kids coming in.”
It can only help when you’re going up.