by Devan Matthews
Correspondent
It was a highly successful season for the Nordonia High School boys and girls swimming teams.
First and foremost, the Knights qualified an athlete to the state swimming and diving meet. That athlete was senior Breanne Horrigan, who competed in one-meter diving at states.
Horrigan was sixth at the district competition, becoming the first female athlete in school history to advance to the State Meet. She finished 16th in Columbus.
Others who competed at the district meet were junior Carly Dean in the 100 fly (school-record time of 1:04.46), sophomore Jamie Wlosowicz in the 100 freestyle (school-record time of 55.13), freshman Emma Toaz in the 100 breaststroke (school-record time of 1:11.41) and senior Ryan Dengate in the 100 breaststroke.
Two Nordonia relay squads also set new school standards at the district meet. Those were the girls' 200 freestyle unit of Wlosowicz, Toaz, senior Savannah Collins and senior Jessie Moosbrugger (1:43.72) and the boys' 200 freestyle team of Dengate, sophomore Christian Long, junior Sean Van Buskirk and junior Kamyar Sadegi (1:31.80).
But that wasn't all.
For the first time in school history, both the boys and girls teams won a conference championship, as well. Specifically, they captured the Northeast Ohio Conference title.
By virtue of Nordonia's dual meet victory over conference foe Lakewood on the road on Tuesday, Jan. 26, the boys clinched the co-championship and the girls claimed the outright crown.
The Knights are losing a total of 14 seniors to graduation.
Nine of those seniors are girls. They include Horrigan, Collins, Ashley Fink, Moosbrugger, Lacey Nichols, Alina Pristas, Kelly Slovan, Rachel Woff and Adriana Zalar.
The six boys who will be graduating this spring are Dengate, Tyler Novak, Alex Shahidian, Tyler Tomasheski and Nick Wiemer.
The good news is that Nordonia has 15 juniors who will take the place of those 14 departing seniors.
Ten of those 15 are boys -- Sadegi, VanBuskirk, Bryan Gerber, David Tanczos, Sean Tyrrell, Sean Whittaker, Michael Bleich, Scott Danner, Jacob Hathaway and Cameron Williams.
The five who are girls include Dean, Alyssa Jaskiel, Katie Seleman, Allie Toaz and Mariel Gerry.
Showing Nordonia's balance is a sophomore class consisting of 14 members, predominately girls. Those 11 girls include Wlosowicz, Desiree Abbott, Nicole Clough, Gabby Fenn, Jennifer Hegyi, Taylor Horrigan, Emily Slovan, Caitlyn Steele, Valerie Vondrak, Sara Vrabel and Megan Zangara.
The three boys are Long, Jawuan Peterson and Dan Bunn.
Last but not least are the Knights' 10 freshmen, seven boys and three girls. Comprising the boys' class are Zach Zuercher, Jimmy Frantz, Alex Rinehardt, Nick Tanczos, Warren Tyus, Liam VanBuskirk and David Williams.
The girls' class of freshmen consists of Emma Toaz, Katie Farley and Jill Grell.
Nordonia's head coach this past season was Claudio Costanzo, who completed his ninth year at the helm. His assistant coaches were Terry Toaz and Kim Hernandez.
E-mail: stowsports@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3113