Wolfpack beats two big rivals in tri-meet win

by Scott Fredericks

In the pool in which they will compete at the conference championships, St. Ignatius captured a big Metro Catholic Aquatics Conference tri-meet victory against two of its biggest rivals on Jan. 26.

The Wolfpack (285 points) bested Fenwick by 85 points and Br. Rice by 184 at the meet held at Fenwick High School.

“Fenwick graduated a very strong senior class last season, and their quality numbers are a little down; but they have some very good freshmen,” said St. Ignatius Coach Dave Stephens. “Our guys always get fired up to swim against them, and we usually swim well at their pool. They host the conference meet, so it’s a great chance for our guys to get the experience swimming there.”

St. Ignatius won 10 of 12 events, including all three relays.

Brayden Amendola (200- yard individual medley and 500-yard freestyle) and Jaime Juarez (200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly) were multiple event winners for the Wolfpack.

Beverly resident John Murphy, a freshman diver who already owns the school’s best mark for a freshman or sophomore, led a 1-2-3 finish in the one-meter diving competition to give the Wolfpack a quick 25 points.

Eric Pacholski and Marty Burns were second and third, respectively.

“Our divers did an awesome job going 1-2-3 and have been a strong source of points for us all year,” said Stephens.

Michael Charysh (100-yard freestyle) and Mark Alvarado (100-yard backstroke) were the other individual winners for St. Ignatius.

The 200-yard medley relay squad got the Wolfpack swimmers off to a strong start with a competitive win over Fenwick by a half-second. Alvarado, Amendola, Jack Abernethy and Brendan Moore posted the win.

Later, St. Ignatius won another battle with the Friars in the 200-yard freestyle relay.

Charysh, Abernethy, Moore and Juarez beat their foes from Fenwick by 45-hundredths of a second.

St. Ignatius closed out the meet in strong fashion with a two-second win over Fenwick in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Juarez, Amendola, Alvarado and Charysh comprised that winning squad for the Wolfpack.

“Our relays did a really nice job, and we had some exciting races with Fenwick in all three,” said Stephens. “We definitely have some things to work on, and we are still trying to finalize our lineup for sectionals.”

Stephens said he was impressed by the effort of Br. Rice senior Matt Stelnicki in the 100-yard breaststroke. He bested Fenwick’s Bryce Peters by better than six seconds to capture that event.

The Crusaders also had a strong effort from Sean Davis in the 100-yard backstroke. He was second.

The Friars’ lone win came in the 50-yard freestyle with Eric Bell (22.54) edging Charysh (22.66) and Alvarado (22.67).

This is part of the February 3, 2010 online edition of The Beverly Review.

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