West Hartford’s Conard High School boys swimming and diving team traveled to Southington on Jan. 24 and earned a hard-fought win.

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Heading into Wednesday afternoon, the Conard boys swimming and diving team was 5-0 after a pair of short-handed wins against Windsor and South Windsor in the previous week, and they found themselves in a similar position Wednesday afternoon as they took on CCC West rival Southington.

Southington took an early lead winning the Medley Relay, 200 Freestyle, 200 Individual Medley, and 50 Freestyle, but Conard  was able to keep the score close by finishing 2-3 in the Medley Relay (Nathan Lowney, Nick Hall, Luke Scheinfeldt, Andy Filotto, and Lucas Steadman, Zach Goslee, Kian Abolfath, James Auciello), 2-3-5 in the Individual Medley (Hall, Andrew Phan, Abolfath), and 2-3-4 in the 50 Freestyle (Lowney, Auciello, Jack Rich).

Heading into the break the Red Wolves were down 33-29, but with their best events coming up the team dug their heels in and prepared to keep fighting.

The teams split the 100 Butterfly with Filotto, Scheinfeldt, and Bruce Jones combining for 8 points, but the 100 and 500 Freestyle went in the Blue Knights’ favor, putting them up 60-50 over the Red Wolves before the 200 Freestyle Relay.

Conard’s depth in sprint freestyle gave them the push they needed to get back into the meet, with the A and B 200 Freestyle Relay teams combining to take 1-2 (Andrew Phan, Filotto, Scheinfeldt, Auciello and Alex Petit, Finn Harned, Abolfath, Ethan Hunt), and pushing the score to 62-62. While Southington was able to pull ahead by 2 points after the 100 Backstroke, the Red Wolves shocked the Knights in the 100 Breaststroke by sweeping the event behind Filotto, Goslee, and Yohannes Robson, putting them up 82-74 heading into the last event of the day.

Nathan Lowney swimming 100 backstroke. Photo credit: Allie Moynihan

Southington needed a 1-2 finish in the 400 Freestyle Relay to win the meet, but Conard again had too much depth left for the Blue Knights to fight back. The team of Phan, Petit, Hall, and Lowney cruised to a second place finish, while Hunt, Auciello, Steadman, and Goslee took the third place spot, sealing the win for the Red Wolves 88-82 and pushing them to 6-0 on the season.

After the meet Conard Coach Pollard said of her team’s performance, “I am so proud of the team and how they swam today. Going into a tough pool to swim in, against a team that’s been the reigning CCC West Champion for years, doing it with one of your top swimmers out sick and another top swimmer swimming sick, it would have been easy for them to throw in the towel before we even walked in the building. But they stayed committed, they fought every step of the way, they never backed down. I couldn’t be happier with them that I was today.”

In addition to the win, Nick Hall qualified for the state tournament in the 500 Freestyle

Conard will compete against Simsbury High School at Cornerstone on Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 31.

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