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PRINCETON: PHS boys swim to crown

Filipovic part of deep Mercer champions

By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
   Harun Filipovic was confident in his Princeton High School boys swim team after a good start in the Mercer County Championship preliminaries on Friday, but the PHS junior was hoping that he would have a better day Saturday in the finals.
   ”Friday I went home and got rested and came back feeling so much better on Saturday,” Filipovic said. “The moment I got in the water, I knew I was going to swim well.”
   The first time that Filipovic got out of the water Saturday, the Little Tigers already were well on their way to the team title after placing four in the top six of the 200 individual medley. By the final time he got out as a part of the winning 400 free relay, PHS had eclipsed the field with 338 points. Runner-up and defending champion Notre Dame had 193.
   ”Last year, we were tied with Notre Dame after the 200 freestyle relay,” Filipovic said. “We didn’t have the depth to finish off the meet, which is where they won. I wouldn’t say we felt discouraged. We set a goal to win county next year. It felt great to finally be done with it.”
   The county crown was the first for the Little Tigers since 2004, when they won their third straight. This year’s championship has been in the making for three years, since Filipovic’s outstanding class arrived.
   ”Our biggest strength is to have so much depth,” Filipovic said. “We have a core of older kids. We have juniors that are all fast. This year, we got even more depth with the addition of some freshmen like Peter Kalibat and Will Stange.
   ”Everybody has improved since last year. Knowing we have underclassmen that are fast and can carry on the team when we’re gone, that’s nice.”
   The start of a potential PHS county dynasty began with a dominant performance on Saturday. Stange, Jacques Bazile, Victor Honore and Matt Kuhlik swam a meet record 1:52.95 to win the 200 medley relay and set the tone for the day. Stange won the 200 free with Peter Deardorff second. Then came the IM, where PHS got second (Kalibat), third (Addison Hebert), fourth (Filipovic) and sixth (Matt Purdy).
   ”From the moment we swam the 200 medley relay and got the county record, that was great and was a good feeling to know we swam fast and it set us up for the rest of the meet,” Filipovic said. “Then we got four of the top six in the IM. After that, we had the feeling we were going to win. We still had to swim our best. There was lots of competition out there.”
   The Little Tigers went 1-2 in the 50 free with Derek Colaizzo and Kuhlik. Colaizzo was second and Hebert sixth in the 100 fly after the break. Kuhlik won the 100 free with Deardorff sixth. Kalibat was second in the 400 free. PHS won the 200 free relay with Colaizzo, Kalibat, Deardorff and Kuhlik. Stange was second, Filipovic third and Honore fourth in the 100 back. Colburn Yu was third, Bazile fifth and Purdy sixth in the 100 breaststroke. Colaizzo, Filipovic, Stange and Deardorff capped the meet with a 400 free relay win in a season-best 3:44.38.
   ”We knew that we’d be well positioned, and if we just swam a good solid meet we’d have a good chance to win,” said PHS head coach Greg Hand. “I thought we did more than just swim it out.”
   West Windsor-Plainsboro South finished third overall with 183 points, just 10 shy of second place. Patrick Park was named the Most Outstanding Swimmer after winning the 100 butterfly in a meet-record 58.52 seconds and won the 100 breast in 1:08.04. Dan Druckman won the 100 backstroke.
   The Pirates were fifth in the 200 medley relay, Kevin Welsh was fifth in the 50 free and fourth in the 100 free, Ian Dixon-Anderson was fifth in the 400 free. The Pirates were second in the 400 free relay and fifth in the 200 free relay.
   ”I thought the boys did great,” said Pirates head coach Paul Hamnett. “They actually had more boys in the finals than the girls. We had some guys step up. We got some 11ths and 12ths instead of 13ths and 14ths. It allowed us to get a solid third. It’s nice to be able to get in that top 3. It’s a tribute to the depth of the boys.”
   The Pirates are feeling better about their swimming as they head into the Central Jersey A Division state meet.
   ”We’ve got a pretty set lineup,” Hamnett said. “I can move Patrick around almost anywhere. A lot comes down to matchups.”
   The WW-P North boys finished fifth with 132 points, just nine points out of fourth place. The Knights were fourth in the medley relay, Jung-Mao Hsieh was fifth in the 200 IM, Wilson Chan was sixth in the 50 free, Greg Cino placed fourth in the 400 free, they were fourth in the 200 free relay and third in the 400 free relay. The Knights will be looking to the CJ A state tournament as well.
   State matchups are due out by today. The PHS boys are likely to be the top seed in CJ B, and Filipovic is looking forward to the next step in what’s been a dream season.
   ”We feel great going into states,” he said. “We’re fast, but there’s still lots of fast teams out there, many that are faster like Haddonfield and Scotch Plains. We won’t worry about that now. When that comes around, we’ll get ready for it. Hopefully we’ll get into the state finals and win it. That’s our goal this year.”
   The county meet gave the Little Tigers another jolt of confidence. The Little Tigers weren’t even thrown off by a not having a fully healthy team. Honore, last year’s MVS, is still recovering from a week-long illness, and PHS replaced him with Filipovic in the 400 free relay without missing a beat.
   ”He swam a great leg on the first day,” Hand said. “Then he swam a personal best time in the relay final. That’s a good example of what he does for us. He always gives us a high quality effort.”
   The Little Tigers will need that sort of push going forward into the state meet. The team effort is what was most encouraging to PHS’ chances.
   ”The thing that counties shows,” Hand said, “is this is not going to be a team that will back down from someone that has hundreds more power points.”
   Beyond states, Harun Filipovic and the Little Tigers will start to think about next season, and the chance to come back and again start the championship portion of the season with a county title.
   ”I still have hopes we’ll come back a strong team and be able to defend our title,” Filipovic said. “Everybody will grow. Everybody will get faster so hopefully we’ll be able to do the same thing next year.”