By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
The West Windsor-Plainsboro South boys swim team went into last weekend’s Mercer County championship meet boosted by the confidence of an undefeated regular season., But even with the added confidence, the Pirates knew winning a title would not be easy., “I think we knew we had a shot and when you know you have a shot its a matter of just taking it,” said South senior Kurt von Autenried, who won a pair of events and earned Most Outstanding Swimmer honors in helping the Pirates to the team title. “I think the past few years we have stressed the dual meets over the county. This year we have spent a lot more focus on the county. Our hard dual meets were in the beginning of the season so we were able to shift our focus to the county meet.”, The Pirates won five individual events and a pair of relays to earn their 23rd county title and first since 2006. South The finished with 275 points, which was 33 ahead of second-place Notre Dame. Princeton finished fourth and WW-P North was fifth., In the girls meet, Notre Dame won the team title with 248 points. WW-P South finished fourth, Princeton was fifth, WW-P North was seventh and Stuart County Day finished 12th. Abbey Berloco of Notre Dame, who previously swam for Princeton, was the girls MOS after winning the 200 free and 100 free., The Pirates were led by double-winners von Autenried, who won both the 50-meter free and 100-meter free, and Joshua Huang, who won the 200 IM and 100 backstroke. Manish Rachamallu won the 100 breaststroke. South also won the 200 medley relay with Huang, Michael Krigeris, Michael Zhong and Rachamallu, as well as the 200 free relay with Alex He, Alexsandr Simonelli, Rachamallu and von Autenried., “I think given how strong we knew the opposition was, it wasn’t necessarily a target at first,” von Autenried said of the expectations of winning a county title. “It was only when we realized how much we had improved and how much strength we had that we said, ‘Lets give it a shot.’ Our intent is always to do our best no matter if we had a chance to win or not.”, The depth of the Pirates also shined through as Simonelli (third in 100 butterfly and sixth in 200 free), Michael Zong (fourth in 200 IM and sixth in 100 fly), Rachamallu (third in 50 free), and Krigeris (second in 100 breast and fourth in 400 free) all finished in the top six., “We certainly stressed how important it was for our lower guys to get into the finals,” von Autenried said. “Before prelims when we saw the psyche sheets we saw we had a lot of guys around 12-13-14. They had to push hard to make it into the finals. We really did get most of, if not all of our guys, into the finals which was amazing. We few a few where guys just made it into the A final or just made it into the B final. Overall our depth was just enough to get it done.”, In a bit of a surprise when it came to his events, von Autenried, who had won the butterfly and was third in the 50 last year, came away with both sprint titles this year., “I think the obvious question everyone was asking around the deck was why not the 100 fly,” said von Autenried, who will swim at Stevens Tech next year. “I had done it the three years before. It was not because I didn’t want to do it, but we felt like the team had to come first. We had some strong guys in the fly. I wanted to do whatever would benefit the team more and I believed not doing the event been was the right decision.”, South came into the county meet with a perfect 13-0 regular-season record. The success gave the Pirates confidence heading into the county meet., “Everyone on the team has felt this is the year we need to go in and get it done,” von Autenried said. “One of our freshmen, Joshua Huang, had an injury at the beginning of the season and despite that has been able to contribute so much to the team. The same with all the other guys. Mike Krigeris was out last year for the county meet. We have had everyone improve on their times. The amount of effort they have put in has really paid off. We are not the team we were last year. We started strong right out of the gate this year.”, Princeton finished fourth in the boys meet. Oliver Hunsbedt was second in the 200 IM and third in the 100 breaststroke, Alex Petruso was second in the 50 free and 100 back, Daniel Barberis was fifth in the 50 free, Will Kinney was sixth in the 100 free, WW-P North finished fifth. Alex Yu was fourth in the 200 free and fourth in the 100 free, Mike Liu was fifth in the 100 fly, Matt Chan was fourth in the 100 breaststroke., Princeton resident Jake McBride, who swims for Pennington, won the 100 butterfly and was second in the 100 free. Plainsboro resident Matthew Lequang won the 200 free and 400 free., Princeton’s Melinda Tang won the 100 butterfly and was fourth in the 200 free. She was the only individual winner among the local teams. Maddie Whaley was fourth in the 200 IM for the Little Tigers, who had won the last four county titles., For South, Claire Huang was third in the 100 butterfly and fourth in the 100 backstroke, Isabel Williams was fourth in the 400 free, Lehna Ding was fifth in the 100 free and sixth in the 200 free, Eugenia Ma was sixth in the 400 free, and Dana Jung was fourth in the 100 breaststroke., For WW-P North, Hana Kato was fourth in the 100 fly, Christina Kim was sixth in the 100 free and sixth in the 100 backstroke. Stuart picked up points from Alexandra Bullen-Smith, who was seventh in the 400 free, and Charlotte Driver, who was eighth in the 100 breaststroke.
