By:  Marisa Papagelis

Last Saturday, the Westborough High School  Rangers’ boys state team comprised of: senior captain Ryan Shufflebarger, junior Aaron Wong, junior Louis Gencarelli, junior Savant Liu, junior Spencer Brownewell, and freshman Justin Papagelis made Westborough High School history by placing second at the MIAA Division II State Swimming and Diving Championship. The best finish that Westborough had ever completed until Saturday’s Championship was ninth place at the State Championship last year.

The rather small team of six boys placed second out of 51 teams. Scoring enough points to place second with only six boys was an accomplishment in itself. The Rangers fell short to Wayland High School who had 17 swimmers plus divers to score them points. Each swimmer is allowed to swim up two four events and only two of them can be individual events.

The Rangers’ two best performances of the night both came from Papagelis, the youngest member of the team. Papagelis placed second in the 200 individual medley with a new school record of 1:58.40. This time broke the old school record of 2:00.56, that was set in 2014, by over two seconds. Papagelis also grabbed second in the 100 backstroke (53.88), out touching Brownewell who placed third.

“It felt so awesome to come in second at the State Championship and it was great to see that all of our hard work as a team had paid off,” comments Papagelis. “The meet was such a great experience and to come in second overall with only six kids against teams double or triple our size was amazing.” Papagelis is looking forward to improving more and more in his next three seasons on the swim team.

Wong had an excellent night breaking two school records. In the 50 freestyle, he placed sixth with a new school record of 22.16, which broke the previous school record of 22.53 from 2005. In his second event, the 100 freestyle, Wong placed fourth, breaking his own school record of 48.93 with new time of 48.48.

Captain Shufflebarger placed 16th in the 200 freestyle and 10th in the 500 freestyle. Shufflebarger owns the school record in the 500 freestyle. Other top finishes came from Gencarelli, who placed seventh in the 100 freestyle and 14th in the 50 freestyle, and Liu who placed 17th in the 200 individual medley.

Aside from the phenomenal individual finishes, the Rangers had strong performances in all three of the relays. In the first event of the night, the 200 medley relay, Liu, Wong, Brownewell, and Gencarelli teamed up to place third. In the final event of the night, the 400 freestyle relay, Brownewell, Shufflebarger, Wong, and Papagelis finished fourth, breaking their old school record, that was set during the Midland Wachusett League meet a few weeks earlier, by almost a second and a half. The new record is now 3:21.55. The Rangers team of Papagelis, Liu, Shufflebarger, and Gencarelli also teamed up to place seventh in the 200 freestyle relay.

Looking forward to next season, the Rangers will be losing Shufflebarger, a prominent member of their state team; however, they are confident that they will remain a strong force at the 2018 Division II State Championship with four upcoming seniors, Papagelis, and certainly more underclassmen talent.