Last week, the Warriors started their championship season with Dual County League championships. Both teams were successful, the girls took home first place and the boys took home third.

On Wednesday, boy divers Austin Brennan, Will Bladon, and Doug Curtin scored 6^th, 8^th, and 14^th place for Wayland at diving DCL championships.“Diving did better than we expected,” said Wayland Coach Mike Foley, “[It] gave us momentum going into the swimming meets.”

Friday’s boys swimming DCL championship started with a win in the 200-yard medley relay from veterans: senior captain Bobby Dresser, junior Michael Ren, junior Ian Stack, and senior captain Travis Downs. Downs raced to just out touch Lincoln Sudbury’s relay by just one tenth of a second.

Wayland’s B relay finished in tenth with Sasha Parfenov, Graham Mellen, Mark Crisafulli, and Gavin LaRochelle.

Senior newcomer Andy Gusev scored fourth in the 200-yard freestyle, and later 8^th in the 500-yard free Following him were freshmen Matt Devlin and Mark Karlson, who finished ninth and 15th. Both freshmen dropped time for lifetime bests, including Devlin who swam to under the two-minute mark.

In the 200-yard IM, Ren scored seventh, while medley-relay teammates Ian Stack and Travis Downs took first and second place in the 50-yard free respectively. Senior captain Charlie D’Orlando also scored 11th. Graham Mellen, Gavin LaRochelle, Trevor Dixson, Brian Murtagh, and Jimmy Carmichael improved their times as well.

Stack swam to second in the 100-yard butterfly, getting out-touched by a Lincoln Sudbury senior. Dresser scored ninth in the event, and sophomore Mark Crisafulli, freshman Rory McHarg, and junior Patrick Curtin had substantial drops to earn unexpected points for the Warriors at 11^th, 15^th, and 15^th respectively.

In the 100 free, Downs took second while Devlin and D’Orlando took 7^th and 8^th.

Wayland relays proved strong again with a first place win in the 200-yard freestyle relay, with Downs, Stack, Gusev, and D’Orlando. D’Orlando out touched his Weston opponents by just a tenth of a second. The relay pushed Wayland to overall second place in the meet.

“It was very exciting,” said Wayland Coach Keith Meliones, “The boys earned more points than we expected. At the one point when they were even in second place. They exceeded expectations.”

In the backstroke, Dresser took fourth, and freshmen McHarg and Sasha Parfenov took 9^th and 11^th. McHarg was just two hundredths of a second away from the freshmen record held by Dresser.

Ren scored first in the breaststroke, and junior Graham Mellen had a huge drop to 8^th place and to qualify for States. Wayland finished the meet with fourth in the 400-yard freestyle relay with D’Orlando, Gusev, Dresser, and Ren. The Warriors earned 403 points in total for third, just 81 points behind Weston in first, and Lincoln Sudbury in second.

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“It was good to see how much we have grown, we lost a lot of our depth from last year and we spent the year adjusting,” said Wayland Coach Mike Foley. “But the fact that we were ahead of Lincoln Sudbury after the 200-yard freestyle relay shows how much we have grown. We didn’t expect to have that at all.”

Senior captain Travis Downs finished the meet with 1,000 career points exactly, placing him in range to be a top 3 male scorer of all time at Wayland High School.

Downs said that he was in part motivated by seeing a fellow swimmer, Brendan Dugan of the class of 2008, break 1,000 points. “Ever since seeing Brendan Dugan, it had been something I’ve always wanted but never thought that I would be able to achieve.”

Downs completed his freshman year with only 75 points, a testament to his growth as a swimmer in his high school career. “I never could have done it without the team, being on successful relays really helped me get there,” he added.

On Thursday, girl divers Carolyn Jones and Whitney Fletcher scored 6^th and 8^th place for the Warriors which carried into the success of the swimming meet on Saturday.

The medley relay team of senior captain Liz Doyon, junior Val Eisenson, freshmen Kristina Barakov, and junior Emily Nuss took second, with Nuss out touching Lincoln Sudbury by just two hundredths of a second.

The freshmen took the 200 yard freestyle for Wayland with Meghan Pierce in first, Allie Wuerfl in 5^th, Isabel Schwartz in 8^th, and Catherine Barber in 14^th.

In the individual medley, Nuss, sophomore Hallie Cramer, and junior Jaime Reichlen scored 7-8-9, and freshman Ellen Barber took 12^th.

Wayland sprinters: captain Emily Wright, Emily Downs, and Michelle Cunningham took second, fourth, and sixth. Sophomore Juliette Bastarache also had a drop into 13^th place and qualified for States. Freshmen Elizabeth Place and Caroline Mellen swam to a lifetime best and their first time under the 30-second mark.

Travis Downs said, “Everyone had great swims which put us a lot closer to 2nd place than we should have been.  The team is really focusing on states and looking forward to it.”

Barakov took second in the butterfly, with sophomore Saya Higano earning 7^th, sophomore Erin Curtin in 11^th, and freshman Pippa Edwards in 12^th. Curtin also earned her first states cut in the butterfly.

Wright, Downs, and Cunningham returned with 2-3-4 finishes in the 100-yard freestyle. Sophomore Hallie Cramer took 7^th, and Doyon took 11^th.

Underclassmen did well in the distance 500-yard freestyle event, with Pierce in first, Higano in third, Wuerfl in 6^th, and Schwatz in 7^th earning the State cut.

Said senior captain of DCL’s Whitney Fletcher, “Everyone on the team was so enthusiastic, it is just an amazing atmosphere to be in.”

The 200-yard freestyle relay was close with Lincoln Sudbury earning first, Wayland second, Weston third, and Wayland B in fourth. The top three finishers were all within .12 seconds of each other. Second place finishers were Wright, Downs, Cunningham, and Pierce. In fourth were Nuss, Cramer, Higano, Wuerfl.

“There were a lot of different individual challenges we had for people,” said Foley. “As a team, one of the big things we focused on was the B relays. We really needed them to get up and perform at a higher level than they may had been used to.” Wayland B-relays out scored all of the Weston B-relays, which allowed Wayland to pull ahead in the score.

Doyon took 5^th in the backstroke with Barakov in sixth, Edwards in tenth, Curtin in 12^th, and Catherine Barber in 14^th.

Wayland had six top-sixteen finishers in the breaststroke. Eisenson, Reichlen, and Nuss took third, fourth, and sixth respectively. Ellen Barber took ninth, and Keely Griffin had a lifetime best for 15^th. Senior captain Susan Cunningham dropped three seconds for her lifetime best and her first Sectional cut ever, she earned an unexpected 13^th place.

“The highlight of the meet for me was senior captain Susan Cunningham making Sectionals for the first time,” smiled Coach Meliones, “She had worked so very hard, and it was great to see all her hard work turn out to be successful, everyone was cheering for her.”

“I think my favorite moment of the meet would be cheering for Susan,” agreed Fletcher. “After her race was over, I felt so lightheaded from screaming, but I was so happy for her. She definitely deserves it.

Wayland finished the meet with a first place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay with Wright, Cunningham, Downs, and Doyon. Freshmen Pierce, Barakov, Wuerfl, and Schwarts earned third place and broke the Wayland freshmen record for the event.

Coach Meliones also expressed pride in the swimmers from “Lane 5,” who earned 13 personal bests at the meet.

“I think that a large part of our success [comes from] how close we are as a team. Throughout the season we become a family, everyone is included and everyone supports each other,” explained captain Susan Cunningham. “It was great to see everyone’s hard work pay off; so many people achieved personal goals.”

Wayland won with 619.5 points and Weston earned second with 482. “Our depth has shined through,” explained Foley. “We only won three events all day, two individual and one relay, but still we were able to out score our nearest opponent by more than 100 points. That just shows that it wasn’t two or three people, it was really the whole team.”