Swimmers set historic marks 

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Sophomore Joseph Lanzafama, who finished second in the 200 medley relay against Sayreville, rises about the surface while swimming the butterfly.

BY AVERY PERSON 

Sports Editor 

            The boys’ swim team finished their season 1-6 and the girls finished their season 1-5. While the team results fell short of expectations due to a challenging schedule, the season provided many highlights, including the setting of multiple school records. 

            Senior Shereef Ellithy broke the school record for the 50m freestyle despite being unfamiliar with the event. “To be honest, I have never swam it, and it’s fun, so I wanted to,” explained Ellithy. “I swam it for the first time towards the end of the season.” 

            Shereef stepped outside of his comfort zone to complete this event and set the new school record of 22.51 seconds. “I honestly didn’t expect it,” said Ellithy. “I realized I had a good chance at it, so I worked for it and got it at conferences.” 

            Sophomore Madelyn Hopkins broke the record for the 500m freestyle for the school. “It feels good, as that one was of my goals from the beginning of the year,” explained Madelyn. “I was excited and felt accomplished.”  

            Madelyn’s sister, senior Emily Hopkins, broke another school record, the 100m backstroke. “The team cheered the entire time making the environment super exciting,” Emily Hopkins said. 

Senior Alayh Diab, who finished first in eight races across five different events talks to her teammates during warm ups.

            Some swimmers didn’t set school records but succeeded by meeting their personal goals.  “I slowly cut my time on my [personal record]’s throughout the season,” senior Phyllis Goodridge said. 

            The team in the beginning of the season expected to have some setbacks following the fact that they lost some key swimmers due to graduation, but they knew that they had to keep a positive mindset throughout the whole season.  “We knew going into it we were not going to do as well as we did last year because we lost some swimmers,” Emily Hopkins shared. “Our moral as a team was to just stay positive, have fun and swim our very best the entire season no matter what.” 

            The biggest highlight of the season for the team overall came in their win against Sayreville on January 13. “My highlight of the season was the meet 1/13 vs Sayreville. Both the boys and girls team swam their best to win our first meet,” said Madelyn Hopkins. 

Sophomore Suhas Gorle, whose best event was the 200 freestyle, approaches the wall and prepares to make the turn

            Surprisingly, the team also considered an out of division loss on January 6 a high point of the season.  “The meet against Marlboro was very exciting because although we lost, we were very close to beating a challenging team,” senior Alyah Diab explained. “The energy from the crowd and swimmers was also very high,” They finished with a tough lost 87-79 at home. 

            Although the team as a whole struggled, all of the athletes can be proud of their accomplishments. 

  • Senior Yann Rochelin, who competed in five different events this season, takes a breath before heading back underwater.
  • Senior Shereef Ellithy, who racked up 14 first-place finishes over 5 different events this season, comes up for air during his warm ups.

Posted on 3/21/23 

Photos by Isabelle Marmara and Tristan Panday

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