Boardman swimmers headed for state meet

February 17, 2019 at 12:08a.m.

Basista, Flatley

stand out at CSU

By BOB ETTINGER

CLEVELAND

Boardman junior Noah Basista had an awakening near the end of December. With his eyes open, he went to work and put himself near the top of the podium at the Division I district swim meet at Cleveland State University’s Robert F. Busby Natatorium on Saturday.

“I feel this year, I had some extra focus on the breaststroke,” Basista said. “I put up a good a time at the Christmas Invitational and I knew I had to put in some more work. I was thrilled when I looked at the scoreboard and saw my time.”

Basista placed third in the 100-yard breaststroke and set a school record of 56.28 along the way. That was after he had already placed fifth in the 100 butterfly.

“The breaststroke has been my special thing,” Basista said. “The butterfly is something new for me. Swimming in a new event and taking it to a high level is exciting. The record in the breaststroke means so much to me. It was one of those things as a freshman, I wanted that record. It was supposed to be a four-year plan. Ryan Daley was a role model for me. He went on to swim for the Naval Academy. He was one of those guys in high school you look up to when you’re 9 or 10 and want to be one day. He set the model for what I wanted to do.”

Basista also anchored the 400 freestyle relay that included Will Linker, Jordan Stackpole and Matthew DunLany. The relay was fifth in 3:10.63.

“We’re really happy with our swim,” Basista said. “We were all at the end of the meet and we were tired. We were just swimming for each other. We’re like brothers and we feel we have to do it for each other.”

The Boardman boys finished eighth with 204.5 points.

Only the top two in each event automatically qualify for next week’s state meet at Canton McKinley’s C.T. Branin Natatorium. The rest of the field will be officially filled in with the best times of swimmers across the state and announced today. Unofficially, many of the swimmers, who have been watching the results of the other districts closely as they come in, already know if they’re in or not.

Mikel Flatley led off the Boardman girls 200 freestyle relay, which finished seventh in 1:39.12 and was on the bubble of qualifying for the state meet.

“I was hoping to go faster in the relay,” Flatley said. “I was two-tenths of a second slower than in my individual 50. I wish I would’ve had the same time. It’s hard. I think if I did, we’d definitely be going. I think we all did enough to prepare, we said a prayer before the race. I think we did enough to go. I think we’re all happy with how we swam.”

Word filtered in late Saturday night the time had qualified them for Canton.

Flatley had set a school record of 24.56 in placing 12th in the 50 freestyle.

“I was trying to get the record, but I wasn’t going to be upset if I didn’t,” Flatley said. “I wanted my best time. When I touched the wall, I thought the school record was faster. I was that much happier to get the school record.”