Conard girls swimming and diving team won a CCC West meet and set some records in the West Hartford Invitational.

Submitted

Conard girls swimming and diving had much to celebrate this past weekend, starting off by winning their first CCC West meet versus Newington on Friday afternoon and following up the victory on Saturday afternoon with two new records.

The Red Wolves opened up the meet Friday by sweeping the first four events. In the 200 Yard Medley Relay, Gracie Lowney, Ella Hall, Celia Filotto, and Laura Haverly took first, followed by Lucy Pincince, Lyla Harhay, Claire Haverly, and Kayla Lowney finishing second. In the 200 Yard Freestyle, Rosie Alonzo notched her first win of the day along with her first state cut of the day, while teammates Cece Peck and Edie Kitzman completed the sweep with their second and third place finishes.

L. Haverly, Pincince, and Ciara Frewen raced to first, second, and third in the 200 Yard Individual Medley, with Pincince achieving the state cut. G. Lowney went on to win the 50 Yard Freestyle, while the freshman duo of Emilie O’Sullivan and Lucy Archambault wrapped up the second and third place spots, pushing Conard to a mid-meet score of 51-11.

On the board, Ellie Harhay and Arta Soroush battled it out with Newington’s Alex Sadil. Harhay and Sadil were neck-and-neck with each dive, however it was Harhay who claimed the top spot besting Sadil by 3 points. Soroush, diving in her first meet, added 3 more points to her team’s total, bringing the score to 60-15.

The Red Wolves built on their lead in the 100 Yard Butterfly behind L. Harhay and K. Lowney’s first and second place finishes, both swimming to state cut times, while O’Sullivan snagged the fourth place spot. Peck, Frewen, and Filotto combined for Conard’s fifth sweep of the day in the 100 Yard Freestyle, while Alonzo notched her second win and state cut of the day in the 500 Freestyle, teammates C. Haverly and Archambault finishing second and third to complete the sixth of the afternoon.

Conard’s 200 Freestyle Relays outraced Newington, with Peck, G. Lowney, O’Sullivan, and C. Haverly taking first while Hall, Frewen, E. Harhay, and Alonzo finished second. K. Lowney and Pincince combined for a 1-2 finish in the 100 Backstroke while Lilah Krajc snagged fourth place points for the team.

Conard would go on to sweep the final individual event, the 100 Breaststroke behind L. Harhay, L. Haverly, and Filotto, with L. Harhay earning  her second state cut of the afternoon.

The Red Wolves closed out the meet by sweeping the 400 Freestyle Relay behind the combined efforts of Alonzo, G. Lowney, C. Haverly, and Pincince who took first, while Hall, Peck, Archambault, and K. Lowney finished second.

Less than 24 hours after the conclusion of Friday’s meet, the Red Wolves were back in the pool racing in what has become a perennial favorite meet, the West Hartford Invitational. This 10-team meet brings together some of the top talent in the state from local CCC teams like Conard, Hall, Glastonbury, Farmington, and Plainville, along with FCIAC powerhouses Greenwich and New Canaan, the perennially strong SCC teams of Amity and Daniel Hand, and NVL team Woodland Regional.

While the meet is not scored, the athletes are able to race teams and individuals they usually only see at the state tournament in November, bringing out some of the best in the athletes and preparing them for the end of the season.

For Conard’s Gracie Lowney, the We-Ha Invite was about more than just racing top talent – it was an opportunity to rewrite the record board. Lowney broke the Conard 100 Yard Backstroke record by one one-hundredth of a second at the 2024 Invite and was looking to improve on that time this season. A strong push from Woodland Regional’s Emma Lawson gave Lowney the race she needed. While they two were even going into the first half of the race, Lowney pulled ahead of Lawson beating her by over a second and breaking her year-old record, finishing with a time of 59.86.

A short half hour later Lowney stepped up for the 100 Yard Freestyle, facing off against Greenwich’s Wesley Wales, both athletes aiming to beat the meet record set by Anna Paluska of Glastonbury in 2022. Wales held a slight lead at the halfway point but the swimmers were even as they closed in on the last 10 yards of the race. In the end, both Wales and Lowney broke the meet record, but it was Lowney’s name that would go down in the record books as she out-touched Wales by 14 one-hundredths of a second with a time of 53.28.

The meet wrapped up with the most exciting event of the day, the 1,000 yard freestyle relay. The relay, while not an official event, showcases the best of high school swimming by bringing together two teams of 20 swimmers, four from each team in attendance to face off. The prize? A year’s worth of bragging rights.

This year’s teams set up Conard, Hall, Farmington, Amity, and Plainville against Greenwich, New Caanan, Woodland, Daniel Hand, and Glastonbury. Each team member raced a 50 Yard Freestyle with the order and strategy of the race left entirely up to the participating athletes. The noise from the spectators was deafening as the teams were neck-and-neck through the first 10 swimmers, but by the time the representatives for Hall (Hannah Fink, Ann-Yee Lim, Brianna Cocco, and Claire Culmo) were done with their legs of the race they had a slight lead, with the Farmington swimmers helping to hold it as the final four from Conard (CeCe Peck, Claire Haverly, Lyla Harhay, and Lowney) stepped up against the final four from Greenwich the lead proved too much.

Team Conard-Hall-Farmington-Amity-Plainville took home the win and bragging rights until next season.

Conard is on a bye this week with no meets on the calendar until Saturday, Oct. 4 where they will participate in another invitational at Cornerstone Aquatic Center in West Hartford with Hall, South Windsor, East Lyme, Newtown, and Bulkeley.

Like what you see here? Click here to subscribe to We-Ha’s newsletter so you’ll always be in the know about what’s happening in West Hartford! Click the blue button below to become a supporter of We-Ha.com and our efforts to continue producing quality journalism.