Boardman swimmers break school records

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Neigbors| Submitted.Members of the Boardman Varsity swim and dive team, Ashley Aldan (front left), Gaby DeAscentis, Emily Bodamer (back left) and Jessica Gonda celebrate after breaking a school record in the 200 medley relay. The girls recorded a time of 1:55.07 at the 2010 Sectional Meet Feb. 12 in Akron.

The Lady Spartans broke a school record and 15 swimmers and one diver from the Boardman varsity swim team are advancing to the district championship after a successful day at the 2010 Sectional Meet Feb. 12 and 13 in Akron.

Gaby DeAscentis, Ashley Aldan, Jessica Gonda and Emily Bodamer now own the school record in the 200-yard medley relay. The girls set the new record time of 1:55.07 in the first event at the sectional championships.

DeAscentis had one of the fastest splits in the last three years with a 29.5 on the opening backstroke leg of the relay. The team is seeded 11th for districts at Cleveland State University.

Coach Terry O’Halloran said the performance by the girls jump-started the whole team.

Ryan Bailey set two freshman records and was the highest qualifier. Bailey is seeded sixth in the 100 butterfly and eighth in the 100 breaststroke.

Colleen Manning set two freshman records and qualified to swim in the 200 IM and 100 butterfly.

Other double individual district qualifiers are Ryan Mitchell, 200 IM and 100 butterfly; Alex Downie, 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke; and Gonda, 200 IM and 100 butterfly.

Individual event qualifiers from the varsity team are Steven Moss, 50 freestyle; Ali Azeem, 100 butterfly; Michael Henson, 100 backstroke; Steven Brooks, 100 backstroke; Alden, 50 freestyle; Bodamer and Megan Barringer, 100 freestyle; DeAscentis and Jeana McEvey, 100 breaststroke.

All six of Boardman’s relay teams qualified to compete at the district meet.

O’Halloran said the relay teams had the goal of qualifying them all and it created a lot of excitement by having big time drops.

The girls 200 freestyle relay with Aldan, Bodamer, Barringer and Manning just missed breaking a school record by five tenths of a second.

“Qualifying 16 athletes to the district meet is a great accomplishment for our program,” O’Halloran said.