Schools
Bethel Swimmers Reach Highest Score in School History
The swim team finished its year with Tucker Bjornson swimming a personal best
Freshman Tucker Bjornson led the Bethel Swim team to their highest State scoring total in team history, finishing with 80 points and a 16th overall finish in the 26 team Class S State Finals on Wednesday at Wesleyan. The previous highest point total was 67 points in 2007 when the Class M team was led by Kevin Thai, BHS pool legend.
Kicking off the meet, the BHS 200 Medley Relay team took 18th place posting their season best time of 2:00.85. Bjornson led off with the backstroke (29.67), Andrew Guercio swam the breaststroke (33.26), Kyle Rogers took the butterfly leg (31.81) and Patrick Garrity finished with the freestyle (26.11).
Bjornson finished 13th overall in the 200 IM with a personal best of 2:17.24, closing on in Kevin Thai's BHS record of 2:14.05.
Find out what's happening in Bethelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The 200 Free Relay team swam their four seniors all-female team which competed last year in the Class M championship. Kayla Lance (30.60), Christine Neville (31.33), Laura Steinmetz (29.93) and Alexa Witcofsky (28.53) finished 22nd overall with a 2:00.39, a half second faster than last year's time. At Saturday’s State Trials, junior Chris Wong substituted for Witcofsky in the qualifying race.
Bjornson swam his best time of the year with a 1:02.59 in the 100 Backstroke. He took 11th place, which is the highest state place since Chris Heske's 8th place in the 2007 50 Free. Tucker finished his post-season with an impressive streak of personal bests at the SWC State Trials to the State Finals.
Find out what's happening in Bethelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Finishing the State Final meet, the 400 Free Relay team took an impressive 1 1/2 seconds of their best time with a 3:52.44 to finish 16th overall. Junior Kevin Gallagher (57.98), Darrah (57.53), senior Garrity (59.48) and Bjornson (57.45).
Earlier in the week, took 13th place in the Diving State Finals competition and adding 13 points to the team total.
Also competing in the qualifying State Trials on Saturday in Plainville were several others on the swim team. In the 200 IM were sophomore Sarah Whalen (30th place with 2:39.00, 5th best female swimmer) and freshman James Canfield (33rd place with 2:41.48). In the 500 Free, sophomore Kenny Darrah finished 31st with a 5:58.96, finishing a great year with breaking the 6 minute barrier for the first time. Senior Andrew Guercio took 36th place in the 100 Breaststroke with 1:17.29.
The swim season finished for the year as no one qualified for this weekend's State Open swimming and diving championships.
Editor's Note: All info and Stats were possible through Bob Rogers and Ronin Bjornson, who said, "One of the best developments this season was our relationship with the Bethel Patch, who gave us incredible coverage, photos and helped spread our team's success with the town's sports fans. We really thanks Matt, Alicia and Lauren for all their support!" We too say thank you for all you provided this season.
