By TONY BELLISSIMO
In winning the title for the second time in three seasons, the Marines captured two of three relay events and had a top four finisher in each of the nine individual events. Long Beach finished with 494.2 points. Garden City was second with 393.3 and Hewlett was third with 382.4.
It was an unbelievable all-out effort, Coach Woody Davis said. We had some kids drop five seconds off their previous best times. We've been making progress all along and we seem to have saved our best for last. We came out strong from the very first event and kept it going all day.
The 200-yard medley relay winning team of senior Tim Salter, sophomore Michael Demerest, junior Trevor Hughes and senior Andrew Mininsky finished in 1 minute, 43.01 seconds, just missing the school record set in 1979, while the 400 freestyle relay of freshman Eric Gonzalez, senior Miguel Ochoa, junior Victor Stoyanov and Hughes won in 3:26.55.
Hewlett edged the Marines in the 200 freestyle relay by .51 seconds. In that event, Coach Davis used Mininsky, Demerest, Stoyanov and senior Chris Griffin.
I was planning on us being first or second in all three relays and we came through, Davis said. It was as exciting as you can imagine.
Stoyanov won the 200 freestyle in 1:50.38 and Salter won the 100 backstroke in 56.94. Stoyanov also placed second in the 500 freestyle (4:54.07). Hughes placed third in the 200 individual medley (2:09.09) and second in the 100 butterfly (54.03), Mininsky was third in both the 50 freestyle (23.05) and 100 freestyle (51.81), Griffin finished third in 1-meter diving (362.50 points), and Demerest was fourth in the 100 breaststroke (1:08.58).
The kids really wanted to win, Davis said. You could see the determination on their faces.
Next up for the Marines is the state qualifying event at the Aquatic Center on Tuesday, Feb. 27. The state championships are March 1-2 in Buffalo.
Said Davis, We're going to do the best we can, but everyone has to remember that we're still a young team.
