2005 Union County Girls Co-champs

In the end, the third time proved to be the charm for the Scotch Plains-Fanwood (SPF) Girls and the thirteenth year wasn’t unlucky for Westfield as a tie for the team title at the Union County Girls’ Swimming Championship Saturday at Dunn Center in Elizabeth left both teams and their coaches happy.

As expected, the meet was close and came down to the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay where the Raider foursome of Jillian Murphy, Brittany Larkin, Kristen Henkels, and Melissa Helock easily won in 3:46.82, but Westfield finished second, to
forge the tie as each team wound up with 275 points, nearly equaling the total of the next five teams.

“A county title is a county title regardless of how many teams you share it with ,” said an ecstatic SPF Coach Jessica Hulnik.

“It’s an honor to share this one with Westfield ,” added Hulnik who was thrown in the pool after the final event by her joyous team. It was a breakthrough accomplishment for the Raiders after a season of close misses against their traditional rival which included a dual meet loss and third place to Westfield’s second place at the prestigious Pirate Invitational two weeks ago.

“We're bringing the championship back to Westfield for the 13th straight season," said. Westfield Coach Jaime Ruszala.
"I would rather tie for first than finish second. Scotch Plains deserves a lot of credit.”

SPF might have won the meet outright except for the Walsh sisters of Kent Place who
won three events between them, defeating an SPF swimmer in each case. Star senior Amanda Cameron was narrowly beaten by .04 by Caroline Walsh after defending her 200-yard free style title with a 2:01.99 effort.. Freshman sensation Melissa Helock was twice edged by Blake Walsh in the 100-yard butterfly and 200 yard individual medley but anchored the final winning relay that brought the Raiders from six points back to tie.

After her narrow loss, Cameron was back five minutes later, swimming a 50 yard leg on the winning 200 yard relay that also consisted of Murphy, freshman Mary Henkels and Kristen Henkels and set a meet record with a time of 1:43.12, breaking the former record of 1:44.94 by Westfield in 2000.

“Amanda had her best time in the 500, and was so pumped that she had a great split on the relay ,” said Hulnik, who preferred to look at the Walsh sisters as a positive on her teams’ performance.

“After I got out of the water it was very hard to stand up ,” said Cameron.
“The 500 took all my energy. But, when my coaches came up to me and told me
we had a good shot at the relay record that got me pumped up.”.

An unsung hero was Larkin who gave the Raiders a sweep in the 200 yard free style, finishing second to Cameron as well as swimming on the final relay.

“Brittany had an awesome meet. She dropped three seconds in her 200 free and dropped close to a second in her 100 fly, and she just took off on that relay as did all of the girls. That 400 free relay just gets faster and faster every time it’s put to the test.,” said Hulnik.

Going into the final relay it had appeared as if a dominating Westfield effort in the 100-yard breaststroke might be enough for the Blue Devils to win. Jacqueline DeLaFuente defended her title with Katie Morgan, third and Callie Meserole, sixth..

The Blue Devils’ depth was also evident in the 100-yard free style where Elizabeth Hawkins and. Alexi Kuska closely trailed Murphy. Steady senior tri captain Amanda Dickson also contributed thirds in the 500-yard free style and the 200-yard medley as well as swimming on the two runner-up relays.

“It is such an honor to be part of a team that has won counties for over a decade in a row ,” said Dickson.
“It is exciting that we have won all four of my years. I am just glad that I could contribute.”

Improving SPF freshman Rebecca Fox broke up a Westfield sweep with a second place in the 100 breaststroke and had had a sixth place finish in the 200 yard Individual Medley. She also swam on the medley relay, which placed, second to the Westfield quartet of Kylie Fraser, DeLaFuente, Brittany Reyes, and Kirsten Selert.

Freshman Catherine Harley, who added an eighth place in the 100 yard breaststroke has now participated on two county championship teams in her brief high school career, contributing to the Cross Country team in the fall. Kate Kosenick also added a fifth place in the backstroke just behind Fraser, who was fourth and teammate Mary Henkels who was second.

“It's pretty exciting that we finally caught up to Westfield, “ said Cameron.
“ I would have been happy if we got second, because we haven't even gotten second in a few years. It seemed like it was for the best since I have some friends on
Westfield, so we shared the victory together.”