CBA boys, RBC girls swim to top spots at county meet
BY DOUG McKENZIE Correspondent
There were no big surprises at the Monmouth County Boys and Girls Swimming Championships, held over the weekend at the Ocean County YMCA in Toms River.

At least not in the team competitions, where Christian Brothers Academy won its 18th consecutive county title by outscoring second-place Ocean Township, 318-238, and the Red Bank Catholic girls won their eighth straight title going away, topping second-place Ocean, 403.5-224.

While team titles for the CBA boys and RBC girls seem to be an annual event, another emerging trend is the dominance of young, local swimmers in the individual events.

Each year, fresh faces step up and steal the spotlight at this highly competitive event - a gathering of some of the very best swimmers in the state.

In the boys competition, held Friday, it was Middletown North's Greg Daniele who was theman of the hour, as the junior broke two meet records, winning the 200 freestyle in a time of 1:43.77 (just under two seconds faster than the record time set by Shore Regional'sAndrew Dennis at last year's meet). Denniswas nomatch forDaniele on this day, finishing nearly four seconds behind in second place.

For an encore, Daniele overcame an early deficit to Monmouth Regional's Ed Carnes in the 100 butterfly to win the event in a time of 51.49 - 1.77 seconds faster than the record time set last year by CBA's Martin Harm.

Harm finished third this time around, while Carnes held on to finish second.

Carns came back to win the 100 backstroke in 53.64, while Harm captured the 50 freestyle in a record-setting time of 21.42. Harm's teammate, Harrison Cefalo, added another individual win, taking the 100 breaststroke in 1:02.18, while the CBA relay teams dominated as usual.

The quartet of Harm, Charles Pataffi, Terry Hubert and T.J. McCarthy dominated the 200 freestyle relay in record-setting fashion, beating a three-year-old record with their 1:28.51 mark, while the 200 medley relay team of Alex Fitton, Cefalo, Hubert and Harm beat their closest competitor by over seven seconds, and the 400 freestyle relay team of Robinson Pataffi, Fitton and McCarthy won that event by over 11 seconds.

"We were able to swim 32 kids tonight, so we had a very diverse lineup, where we gave everyone an opportunity to swim," CBA head coach Mike Sullivan said. "We tried to get them some experience in different events so later on in the season, when we need them in those events, they'll have some experience."

Rumson-Fair Haven sophomore Connor Jaeger was another force in the pool Friday: he won both the 500 freestyle (in a meet record time of 4:38.93) and the 200 individual medley (1:59.53).

Red Bank's Taylor Gledhill was the only other individual winner; he took the 100 freestyle (49.11) to lead his team to a third-place finish with 174 points, followed by Jaeger's Bulldogs, with 155.

With CBA's dominance at the county meet, the question of how the Colts measure up with the very best teams in the state is still a bit of a mystery. In their first true test of the season on Dec. 22, they fell to state power St. Augustine, 98-72, despite some positive efforts fromthe entire lineup. CBAswamwell against St.Augustine, only to finish a close second in several events. In addition, they were withoutHarm, who had a double ear infection.

With a healthy Harm back in action, the Colts will certainly have some chances in the next couple of weeks to prove they are worthy of a rematch with St. Augustine. On Jan. 12, they take on St. Joseph of Metuchen in one of the more anticipated meets of the year, while on Jan. 19 they will compete in the Pirate Invitational at Seton Hall Prep.

"That's a big meet next weekend against St. Joseph, who is ranked fourth in the state," Sullivan said. "We haven't beaten them in several years, so we're pointing toward that meet to help us get to the next level."

If CBA is to win a state championship this year, they will almost certainly have to beat St. Augustine to do it.

If they can swim like they did this past weekend at the Monmouth County Championships, theymay just have the horses to top a team that has become their nemesis.

As for the girls' championships in Toms River on Saturday, RBC was led by wins in both the 200 medley (1:54.38) and 400 freestyle (3:47.92) relays, a second-place finish in the 200 freestyle relay, and a series of other top-five finishes in the individual events, led by the likes of Lee Ingram, Megan Reilly, Sarah Finn and Kelly Markwell.

But once again, it was some swimmers from Middletown who stole the individual spotlight.

Middletown South freshman Megan Foran enjoyed a coming-out party of sorts by winning both the 200 and 500 freestyle faces to earn the Swimmer of the Meet award. Foran overcame an early deficit to beat Ocean Township'sDanielleCaruso in the 200 in a time of 1:59.23, before coming back to pass Middletown North's Taylor Crosby in the final 50 yards to win the 500 in 5:16.83.

Crosby came back to win the 200 IMin 2:13.71, while her teammate, senior Lauren Mari, joined Foran as a two- event winner by taking both the 50 free (25.15) and the 100 free (55.39). It marked a triumphant double-win for the Lion senior; she finished second in both events at the county meet last year, as well as at the Shore Conference meet.

Middletown North freshman Crystal Murray also won a gold on Saturday, capturing the 100 fly in 1:02:47, to help lead the Lions to a strong fourth-place team finish with 206 points.

Rumson-Fair Haven finished in third place with 212 points, led by a win in the 200 free relay, where Gabrielle Goione, Devin Patwell, Katie Marino and Mo Osmulski won in 1:44.95.

Ocean Township didn't have any gold medals at the end of the day, but like RBC, they used top-five finishes from the likes of Danielle Caruso and Sloan Hindman in nearly every event to stockpile enough points to capture second place.

Ocean was looking forward to Tuesday's meet with the top-ranked Caseys, where they hoped to have the depth to compete with the deep RBC team, and will also look to topple RBC at the Shore Conference Championships on Feb. 9.