Long Beach surges in county meet

Fifty-yard freestyle county champion Jack Skarren, Frankie Moriarty and Joe Cash each accounted for 31 points to lead Long Beach to a third-place finish in the Nassau County boys’ swimming/diving championships held Feb. 9-12 at the Aquatic Center.
The Marines, coming off a 5-2-1 regular season, were projected on paper to finish no higher than fifth, coach Lynn Volosevich said. But they landed just a few points from second and will send eight representatives to the New York State meet March 4-5 at Ithaca College.
“I’m totally thrilled we took third in the county,” Volosevich said. “It’s even more impressive when you consider we have only a few club swimmers and graduated some heavy hitters from last season.”
Long Beach set the tone in the county meet with what Volosevich described as an unexpected state-qualifying effort in the 200 Medley Relay. Senior Freddy Ramon, the class Salutatorian bound for Yale University, led off with the backstroke, followed by junior Finn Morris (breaststroke), senior Ty Thornton (butterfly), and senior Nikolai Alfasi (freestyle.) “As each of them hit their splits, I saw they were all doing their fastest times and it made me realize we were going to reach the qualifying time,” she said. “They all swam great and I really think it sparked us for the whole meet.”
Alfasi was also part of the 200 Freestyle Relay which finished second in the county and heads upstate with the fourth-best public school time. Skarren, a junior, preceded Alfasi in the leadoff spot and the back half featured Moriarty, a senior, and Cash, a sophomore. The foursome finished in 1-minute, 28.34 seconds.

Skarren, a three-sport athlete (football and lacrosse), ranks in the Top 20 in the state in the 50 free. He won the county title with a time of 21.75. “He’s a very motivated student-athlete who hates to lose,” Volosevich said. “He explodes off the starting block and is very tough to catch.”
Cash was All-County in the 200 (third place) and 500 freestyle, and Moriarty earned All-County honors in the 100 free.
Also headed to the state meet is senior diver Chris Buonocore, who broke a pair of longstanding program records this winter. He’s Long Beach’s new all-time leader in 6- and 11-dive scoring, surpassing 22-year marks held by Keith Griffin. “Chris has an unbelievable work ethic,” Volosevich said of Buonocore, who was third in Nassau with 487.2 points.