2005 Westfield-SPFGirls Section Champs

Westfield Girls Swimming Coach Jaime Ruszala has been supremely confident all season that her team was deep enough to withstand the loss of just about anybody but she was hoping that assuredness wouldn’t be tested in a situation as important as last Monday’s NJSIAA/PSEG North Jersey, Section 2, Public A championships at Bayonne.

Fortunately for Ruszala, her confidence paid off as the Blue Devils
overcame the loss of two of their top swimmers to win their third consecutive section championship by squashing Bridgewater Raritan 96-72.

The victory elevates Westfield into the state semifinals where they met West Windsor Plainsboro South(WWPS) yesterday in a rematch of the 2004 semi final, which was won by WWPS.

Scotch Plains joined their rivals as section champs the following day with 114-56 trouncing of Chatham. The Raiders swept all eleven events as their three biggest stars senior Amanda Cameron, sophomore Jillian Murphy and freshman Melissa Helock each won two events.

Coach Jessica Hulnik admitted that her team was holding nothing back in trying to pile up the highest amount of power pints possible to try and annex the top seed in the Public B group and give themselves an easier semi-final match.

At press time it was unknown whether Scotch Plains amassed enough points to outscore their chief rivals, Rumson and Princeton.

The Westfield girls, who were missing Jacqueline DeLaFuente due to illness, lost another front-line swimmer early when senior Amanda Dickson had difficulty managing her asthma and was forced to drop out of the 200 individual medley halfway through the breaststroke leg.

Sophomore Darrell Ann Smith won two events, the 200-yard Individual Medley in 2:19.89 and the 100-yard backstroke in 1:05.72 and the Blue Devils also got victories from freshman Alexi Kuska and sophomores Katie Morgan, and Kylie Fraser to offset the loss of their top individual swimmer Jackie DeLaFuente, who missed the meet due to illness.

“Darrell Ann had a great meet yesterday in both events ,” said Ruszala.

The Blue Devils also lost versatile tri captain Amanda Dickson midway through the meet., when she had an asthma attack in the middle of her individual medley race and was scratched from her remaining events.

Dickson had joined Fraser, Brittany Reyes and Kirsten Selert on the meet opening winning 200 yard Individual Medley(IM) relay which posted a 1:55.98 time.

“Amanda swam well on the relay and it started the meet off great.,” said Ruszala.

“It scares the kids (and me) when someone is hurt. It is hard to juggle in a dual meet ,when we don’t have the boys events in between ours, so the girls who stepped up literally had to jump in the pool to swim.”

Ruszala is hoping that DeLaFuente, the two time Union County 100 yard breaststroke champion and a fine all around swimmer will be available for the state semifinals, but Ruszala can be heartened by the performances of her young swimmers who have made massive improvements since the beginning of the year, most notably Kuska and Morgan, who were barely on the depth chart.

“Alexi is an awesome kid and awesome swimmer, “said Ruszala,
“She keeps dropping time. I can definitely count on her.”

“Katie is a very consistent swimmer. Her breaststroke time yesterday was a high school best for her and moved her up on our top 15 all time Westfield list,” added Ruszala.

“She is an extremely hard worker and is always looking to improve in any way she can. “

Other heroes for the Blue Devils included Reyes and Selert, who swam on both winning relays, and Elizabeth Hawkins, who anchored the 200-yard free style relay .

The Raiders had cruised into the finals with two one sided victories. In the first round Hulnik limited each swimmer to one event and one relay in a 98-72 triumph over Holmdel. In the second round, Hulnik used her top lineup in a 111-59 dismantling of Caldwell and it was more of the same against Chatham.

“Before the meet, we figured on a worst case scenario of 100 points, but many of our swimmers did better than expected ,” said Hulnik.

“I did not expect to win every event but we had a lot of swimmers
perform at their best.”

What has both Ruszala and Hulnik feeling confident about the championship matches and the future are the contributions of their younger swimmers. In addition to Helock, freshmen Rebecca Fox and Cathy Harley finished 1-2 in the 100-yard breaststroke and freshman Mary Henkels swam on two winning relays and was second in the 100-yard backstroke.