1. Art and Diseño

Jan. 29, 2015 Girls MCT Swimming
Steinert has strong prelim effort as does Nottingham’s Kouznetsova
By Tony Piscotta
Fish4scores.com
Jan. 29: By definition a
person can usually have
only one best friend.
When it comes to
swimming and Steinert
junior Madeline Horner,
however, it seems that
almost everyone is her
"best" friend.
Thanks to two
outstanding races in
tonight's Mercer County
Swimming
Championships
preliminaries she will
swimming against two of
her "best" friends in two
of the more anticipated
Steinert's Maddie Horner swims to victory in her heat in the 200 free during today's MCT
races in Saturday's
preliminaries (Photo by John Blaine/purchase photos at [email protected]).
finals.
Horner was one of three Steinert swimmers to reach the finals in two events along with senior Hailey
Thayer and sophomore Chelsea Ackerson. The three will also swim on the Steinert relay teams in the
200 and 400 freestyle relays along with senior Tess Dalton.
Perhaps the race which will be most eagerly awaited is the 100 freestyle as Horner breezed to a win in
her heat (59.7), just missing Kate O'Rourke's 2014 meet record of 57.89. Two heats later Princeton
freshman Abby Berloco electrified the crowd at the West Windsor-Plainsboro North pool by shattering
the mark in 57.62.
"No matter what happens I'm okay with it because me and Abby are best friends," said Horner. "We do
everything together. I love her so much. I was just watching the clock and it was her best time so I was
happy for her. It's going to be a good race on Saturday. So is the 200."
Her teammates, too, are looking forward to that race.
"That is definitely going to be a race to watch," said Thayer. "Abby is a phenomenal swimmer and I
know that she's going to push Maddie to try her best."
"I love watching them swim each other," added Ackerson. "Because Abby just goes fast, whether she
thinks she's going to or not, all the time and Maddie's always kind of nervous but she always does well
anyway. I never know what's going to happen. They're both so fast. They're great."
In the 200 free Horner will be racing another "best" friend in Princeton's Brianna Romaine.
Romaine just missed breaking the meet record she set last year (2:05.97) in winning her race in a time
of 2:07.76 while Horner had won the race prior to Romaine's in 2:09.14.
"She's so nice too," said Horner. "They're like my two favorite people. I think that's going to be even
closer the 200 free because our best times are within tenths of each other."
Ackerson will also get a chance to face Romaine — going against the Princeton junior in the final of
the 100 backstroke.
The Steinert sophomore swam a blistering 1:06.16 to easily win her heat before Romaine came up
with the evening's top time (1:05.78) two heats after Ackerson's race. Both are within reach of
Romaine's 2014 meet record of 1:04.95.
"I didn't really feel well during (the race)," said Ackerson. "I was just trying to win my heat and make
sure I made it back for finals. (Being so close to the record) was surprising. I didn't look at any of the
meet records so I didn't know what they were. Going into finals I'm second to Brianna Romaine and
she's really fast. I'm just hoping to come in second and improve from today."
In the 400 free relay it will be the rest of the county hoping to chase down Ackerson as she had the
evening's top time in that event (4:29.17). The meet record of 4:26.19 was set by Victoria Cassidy in
2010.
For the third straight year the Steinert relay teams were impressive but, unlike two years ago when
they were relative newcomers, this year the Spartans are among the favorites.
In the 200 free the Spartans held off Princeton (1:56.54 to 1:57.94) in their heat before Robbinsville
swam the top time (1:56.17). In the 400 free Pennington (4:10.43) edged Steinert (4:12.92) before
Princeton swam a meet record time of 4:00.48 — breaking the mark of 4:01.43 set by West WindsorPlainsboro South in 2010.
"That's a good question," said Thayer, when asked if there was more emphasis on one race over
another. "I know that we focused on both of the relays just because we have pretty strong freestyle
sprinters. I think we actually have a better chance in the 200 than the 400 right now. Robbinsville is
seeded first but I know that two of their seniors in that relay are going on their senior class trip so
they're going to be replacing them with two other girls."
"We're excited for the 200 free relay because we have a chance to win," said Horner, who feels it will
be even more special with Dalton getting a chance. "Last year Tess wasn't in it so it's nice to have her
in it this year."
Ackerson has been impressed with the way that the Steinert relay teams have continued to put up
blistering times even after the graduation of Maggie Herbert, who is now swimming at Ramapo
College.
"It's really exciting," said the sophomore. "I didn't know when I started high school that we would be
this good. It's pretty cool coming in first, second, whatever. And I didn't think we'd be doing this well
without Maggie this year but it's really cool to see that we can still place well."
"It's everybody doing their part," she said. "Maggie was the second fastest and now that she's gone
I've gotten faster. Tess and Hailey have gotten faster. And Maddie's always been fast. We're holding
our own."
Thayer, who was a sophomore on those relay teams that first impressed two years ago, admits that it's
a bit more special this time around.
"A little bit I guess," she said. "Don't get me wrong I'm still having fun with it and everything, but I
guess I take it a little bit more seriously. Not that I didn't do that before but now I think I'm a little bit
more focused than I was, but it's still fun."
Thayer qualified in two individual events as she was sixth in the 200 individual medley (2:39.27) and
fourth in the 100 backstroke (1:10.10) — where she will face Ackerson and Romaine.
"I'm looking to swim better on Saturday," she said. "Today was a little bit of an off-day. My time wasn't
as good as I had hoped. That was a good race for Chelsea as well. She should be doing well on
Saturday."
Swimming in the same race with Ackerson on Saturday — after the two were in different heats tonight
— should help both according to the senior.
"I just kind of think in the back of my mind, 'Ooh there's Chelsea. I've got to keep up with her,' " Thayer
said.
*****
Nottingham did not have the overall team success that Steinert did but the Stars did have a big effort
from their outstanding freshman Nkita Kouznetsova — who will get to face Berloco in two races. The
two should be fun to watch race over the next four years.
In the 100 free she was fourth behind Berloco, Horner and Pennington's Shanna Collyer with a time of
1:03.01. Kouznetsova also finished fourth in the 50 free in a time 0f 28:48. Berloco just missed the
meet record (26.46) in winning in a time of 26.52 while Robbinsville's Maria Nitti was second and
Collyer was third.
"Nkita's coming off a big USA meet last Saturday and she did phenomenal there," said Stars coach
Andrew Parsons. "She dropped a lot of time. She came to this and she did awesome. She's up
against some really, really top swimmers. It's a good experience for her and she went and did well with
it."
Parsons was also impressed with junior Kelly Ziegler. While she didn't place in her races Ziegler drop
10 seconds off her time in the 200 free with a 2:40.65 and shaved almost 15 seconds of her seed time
in the 400 free in swimming a 5:43.06. Ziegler was also part of the Stars' eighth-place 400 free relay
team along with Breanne Greaves, Kouznetsova, and Morgan Paterson.
"Kelly had the most awesome day possible," Parsons said. "Undoubtedly she's the hardest worker on
the team. There are days when all three of us coaches are sitting around saying if we could take some
of that and sprinkle it around to the rest of the team we'd have an awesome team and have some left
over."
****
Hamilton West did not have an individual qualifier for Saturday's finals as junior Sam Courtney just
missed qualifying in the butterfly. Courtney finished 13th with a time of 1:16.72, one place ahead of
Steinert’s Emily Gulsby (1:16.80).
The Hornets were, however, able to qualify all three relay teams and that was something that West
coach Kyle Schulke found encouraging.
"Some girls did some good times," he said. "The relays did pretty well but I think they really excelled
more at Nottingham (in the Hornets last dual meet) where they were being pushed by people around
them to come together as a team to try to win. This is a little more individual so you don't have that
same kind of excitement and atmosphere."
With few swimmers having the kind of PR times needed to try and qualify the Hornets sites were set
on swimmers from the teams that are in a similar situation.
"I was real happy more with the relays," said Schulke. "This kind of shows that we were able to beat
Nottingham and beat Ewing without having anyone make it back in finals. It shows how we have a
fairly deep team to a degree. We don't have those standout superstar swimmers like some of the other
teams do but we still altogether as a group can be pretty competitive."
In the 200 medley relay the team of Emma Walter, Vladia Trinh, Courtney and Shelby South was 11th
(2:31.52). In the 400 relay the Hornets team of Erica Maevsky, Roslynn Gorski, Morgan Lokuta, and
Amanda Buchner swam a 5:14.51 (12th). The quartet of Walter, Courtney, South and Lokuta swam the
200 free relay and finished with a time of 2:12.88.
All three will be in the B finals on Saturday.
"That was really our goal," Schulke said. "It was good for the individual girls to try to have good times
but with the relays that was trying to get us back to have another have another swim for that."