The boys swimming and diving teams from West Hartford’s Conard and Hall high schools met for their annual competition Wednesday night at Cornerstone Aquatics Center.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

The Conard boys swim team saved its perfect season with a late rally to beat crosstown rival Hall 95-91 in a thrilling meet at Cornerstone Wednesday night. If the Red Wolves can beat Northwest Catholic on Monday, they will finish the season undefeated.

“It feels incredible, amazing,” said a soaking wet Conard coach Jen Pollard after being tossed in the pool in a long-standing tradition for the winning team. “There were so many races that went Hall’s way, I told our team we only need to flip one or two to win.”

Early on the only thing that looked like it was going to flip was the script, courtesy of an amazing and gutsy performance by the Titans swimmers. Coach John McClure’s team made a statement in the opening event – the 200-yard medley relay. The foursome of Cyrus Xu, Lukas Schreiber, Yaron Kantorovich, and Quinn O’Neill threw down the gauntlet by winning with a time of 1.45.13 just ahead of Conard’s 1.45.23 finish, and when the Titans took third, they had a 10-4 lead. “Both teams went faster in the race than they had all year,” Pollard said.

Conard went  2-3-5 in the 200-yard freestyle behind Nathan Lowney, Matt Krol, and Ethan Hunt, but Jack Ackerman’s win and Thomas Le’s fourth place kept it a 6-point lead for Hall.

When Xu and Kantorovich went 1-3 in the 200 IM, the Hall lead was now 27-18 after three events.

Conard got its first win in an event when Andy Filotto blazed to a 23.56 win in the 50 free, but Hall’s O’Neill and Dominic Roussous finished 2-3 to keep it an 8-point advantage heading into diving.

On the 1-meter board, Conard junior James Auciello was tops with a score of 222.70. O’Neill proved he could get it done on the board, too, finishing second, 40 points back. The teams split the 16 points evenly, and for Auciello it was the start of a gutsy performance on the night. “I’ve been dealing with a labrum tear and in warmups it clicked again and hurt,” he said. “I was upset that I might not get a chance to dive.”

Conard clawed back two points in the 100-yard butterfly. Hall’s Xu won in 54.92 but Conard took the next three spots behind Filotto, Luke Scheinfeldt, and Andrew Phan – but still trailed 50-44 at the halfway point. The 100 free saw the top four swimmers finish within 1.09 seconds of each other, with Hall’s Kantorovich winning in 51.57. Conard’s Lowney took second, 0.21 behind, and teammate Nick Hall was third at 52.16. The Titans’ Le finished fourth with a time of 52.76, and Hall maintained their 6-point lead with another event completed.

Ackerman then dominated the 500-yard free winning by more than 25 seconds, but Conard took the next three places to outscore Hall 9-6 and cut the deficit to 4. In individual events in swimming the winner gets 6 points followed by 4, 3, 2, and 1 point for the next four finishers. In relays, no one can get all the points no matter how it finishes, with the winner getting 8, second place worth 4, and third worth 2.

With just four events – two individual and two relay – remaining, Pollard played a hunch. “During the 500 I saw Cyrus Xu lined up for the 200-free relay and I asked James Auciello a question: ‘Can you give me 50 yards in the 200 relay?’” Pollard said. Knowing he was fighting the shoulder injury she was hesitant to ask, but Auciello did not hesitate to answer. “I asked what time she needed from me and put on the BioFreeze and went,” Auciello said. Conard finished second (with Auciello’s foursome) and fourth, but Hall’s 1-4 finishes made it a 6-point meet again. But for Pollard the move worked out as she had hoped.

Scheinfeldt’s win in the 100-back, along with a 4-5 showing by teammates Lucas Steadman and Jeremy Hunt, earned Conard a 9-7-point split as Hall’s Schreiber (first) and Volenec (third) raced for the Titans. Entering the 11th of 12 events, Hall still held a 4-point lead and looked like the were going to pull off the victory.

The entire meet turned on what happened next. The Red Wolves pulled off a 1-2-3 sweep in the 100-breaststroke behind Zach Goslee, Phan, and Yohannes Robson. Third place was decided by just 0.35 seconds as Hall’s Art Stambler was fourth. The race gave Conard 13 points to Hall’s 3 and for the first time all night, the Red Wolves had the lead.

But the meet was not over.

Entering the night’s final event – the 400-yard freestyle relay – Hall could still win the meet if they could finish 1-2. That would give them 95 points and the best Conard could do was score 2 points and finish with 91.

The start of the final event was about as tight as a race can be. Lowney and Kantorovich started it off, followed by Scheinfeldt and Le all going neck-and-neck up and down the pool over 100 yards. In the third leg Roussous took the lead for Hall and Ackerman finished it off in a time of 3:28.99. Conard took second place just under 2 seconds behind. At that point the score was 93-91 and it would come down to whoever finished third. If Hall took the spot, it would end in a 93-93 tie; if Conard took the spot it would be a 95-91 Red Wolves win.

The team of Ethan Hunt, Jack Rich, Kian Abolfath, and Krol touched in 3.43.23, three and a half seconds ahead of Hall for the win.

The win set off a wild scene of celebration for Conard, and a sense of “what if” for Hall, who gave it their all throughout the night. The come-from-behind win for Conard was the kind of memory Auciello wanted to help provide for the Conard seniors in their last head-to-head with the Titans. “I am very happy for our seniors,” he said. “Everybody on this team did what they had to do to give us the win.”

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