By Marisa Papagelis
The first week in February marks the end of the Westborough Swim Team’s regular season. The Rangers ended their season very strong with the boys team finishing 11-0 and the girls team 6-5. The team was led by senior captains Greg Cervenak and Hailey Limoges.
Even though the team is small compared to other teams in the league (13 boys and 13 girls), they still had a very successful season. “I think the season’s success was not only fueled by our hard work and talented swimmers, but also by the closeness of the team. The good vibes and encouragement put out by everyone helped each athlete to push themselves to the limit,” explains junior Rachel Shufflebarger.
On Thursday, February 4, the Rangers competed at the Midland Wachusett League meet held at Tantasqua Regional High School. This was the final regular season meet where all twelve teams in the league compete against each other at the same time and place. The boys finished first and the girls finished fifth, to give the team a third place overall finish.
Senior Jared Wong, junior Ryan Shufflebarger, and sophomore Aaron Wong who were all quad-winners, placing first in all four of their events. In addition to these wins, many school and league records were also broken. Along with winning his events, Wong set school and league meet records in both the 100 butterfly and the 100 backstroke. Shufflebarger rebroke his own school record by over four seconds in the 500 freestyle. The boys also swept all three of the relays. In both the 200 medley relay and the 200 free relay, the Rangers set two new league meet records.
“After going to practice and working hard everyday, it’s exciting to see how much our constant effort pays off through our accomplishments,” says Louis Gencarelli, sophomore and member of two of the winning relays.
For the girls team, sophomore Marisa Papagelis and freshman Jordan Connelly both individually placed in the top three. In addition to these individual performances, the girls won both the 200 freestyle and the 400 freestyle relays. In the 400 freestyle relay, the team of freshman Emma Kudej, Shufflebarger, Connelly and Papagelis dropped ten seconds from their second place seed time to win the event. They also set a new school record, dropping over four seconds, for the relay.
“Our team of 13 girls is very small compared to the larger teams, like Bromfield and Tyngsborough, that have over 30 girls,” mentions Connely. “It’s hard to compete against teams like these simply because of numbers, but it was nice to have some outstanding individual performances and see Ranger relays pull through and take a few wins,” adds Connelly. “The results say that we placed fifth, but they don’t say that we only had 13 girls. I am very proud of the way we stepped up at the league meet to place fifth out of eleven teams.”
As break quickly approaches, the Ranger’s begin to prepare for the postseason. If they have qualified, swimmers will be able to compete at Sectionals and States. Sectionals will take place on February 13th (girls) and 14th (boys) at MIT, and States will be held on February 20th (boys) and 21st (girls) at Boston University
