Young thinking
Swim team jumps right in with several experienced freshmen.
Ipswich Chronicle
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Joshua Boyd
In a way, the Ipswich High School swimming team and the Ipswich Family YMCA's swimming program have grown together.
With the high school's swimming program in its fifth year, the program is no longer a "baby," but rather a "toddler," according to its head coach, Peg Webber. That "toddler's" best friend has become the YMCA, not just in terms of being a host to the high school program, but also providing a feeder system.
"We are just beginning to grow, and it is exciting to reap the benefits of what the YMCA is doing for our community, in terms of helping young people learn to swim," Webber said. "We're beginning to see those kids come into high school with swimming experience and an understanding of the four competitive strokes."
In fact, several of these new freshmen have already made an impact with the team, having placed several points in the team's season opening 94-87 loss to North Andover on Dec. 13.
"The students who have come on board this year, their skill level and caliber of swimming far exceeds my expectations," Webber said. "We still need to work on stroke refinement. They are very well prepared for competitive swimming."
Most of the top freshmen swimmers on this year's team are boys, including Brian Bouvier, Chris Carroll and Nate Conway.
"Brian is a very versatile distance swimmer who can swim the 500 and 200-yard freestyle as well as the 200 individual medley," Webber said. "He says he hates breaststroke, but he showed me a nice one in his IM.
"Chris is more of a sprinter doing 50 and 100-yard freestyle, and he also swam the 100 backstroke [against North Andover]," Webber said.
Webber said she may have misjudged Conway originally as a JV swimmer, and may bring him up to the varsity level sooner than later.
"I didn't realize what great potential he has," she added. "He did a wonderful job [against North Andover]. He won two events by a substantial amount."
The girls half of the team also features some highly-talented first-year students. Two of those freshmen are divers, as Anna Kerr and Breanna Smith will take their talents to the board. They will most likely be providing point insurance behind likely No. 1 diver Maura McGrath.
However, last year's freshman class of girls, now seniors, features the top female swimmers on the team. The quartet of Anna Josephson, Cara Madden, Caroline Fay and Anna Cornacchio are Webber's "female guns."
"They're my year-round swimmers," Webber said. "They are all multi-talented girls. Fay is mainly a butterfly-er ad IM'er, Josephson does distance, breaststroke and IM, Cara Madden is a 100-yard freestyler, a backstroker and an IM'er and Cornacchio can do breaststroke and freestyle.
"I don't want to take away anything from the efforts of everyone else, but, for the most part, those are the girlswho will stand out this season," said Webber.
She has good reason to believe that. Josephson and Madden both participated in the state finals last season, while Fay and Cornacchio joined those girls at the state sectionals a week earlier.
The team has four captains, including its only male captain, senior Trevor Fouhey, along with seniors Anna Morkeski, Robyn Hackler and Lauren Gouzie.
Fouhey is a sprinter who Webber is "expecting good things from," while Morkeski can swim distance (200 and 500-yard freestyle), Hackler is a butterfly swimmer who posted a personal best against North Andover and Gouzie is a regular contributor to the relays.
"Lauren's contributions far exceed what she does in the water. All four captains are wonderful leaders and provide lots of guidance and enthusiasm," Webber said.
Enthusiasm certainly seems like it will be in good supply this season, the youthful kind especially.
Opening night jitters
Webber knew that her opponent on Dec. 13 would be a tough one, as North Andover has one of the deepest development pools (no pun intended) a team could have.
"I knew that North Andover would be a very powerful team, as they have three different feeder programs in a YMCA, a Pirates club team and the Seacoast Seahawks," said Webber, following the 94-87 loss. "I knew they'd come in very powerful, but our swimmers held very well against them and performed beyond my expectations."
Ipswich picked up a first and a second in two events, the 50 freestyle (Ben Lipman, 26.47 seconds; Trevor Fouhey, 27.10) and the 100 freestyle (Chris Carroll 54.00; Cara Madden 58.32). The other first place finisher was the 200 freestyle relay team of Madden, Carroll, Fouhey and Andre Belperron (1:48.38).
Second place finishes came from the 200 Medley relay team of Madden, Josephson, Fay and Fouhey, and the 400 freestyle relay team of Madden, Carroll, Josephson and Bouvier. Individual seconds came from Josephson (200 freestyle), Bouvier (500 freestyle) and Madden (100 Breaststroke).
For thirds, Carroll (100 backstroke), Josephson (100 breastroke) and Fay (100 butterfly) all tallied points for the Tigers.
The team gets back into action Monday against North Reading.
Want to read more YMCA articles? Click here!