Wahconah Boys, Pittsfield Girls Swim to Wins

PITTSFIELD, Mass. -- Jack Pudlo and Noah Schweitzer won two events apiece Friday to lead the Wahconah boys swim team to a 52-41 win over Pittsfield at the Boys & Girls Club.

 

It was a back-and-forth meet that came down to the last couple of events as the new look cooperative team at Wahconah showed it is ready to make it an exciting winter in the county’s pools.

 

“It was a fun meet for us because the last few years, we’ve only really had Pittsfield and Monument with the only boys teams that compete,” Pittsfield coach Jim Harrington said. “It was a close meet today. I think that brought the best out in both sides.

 

“All the races mattered. I think that makes it fun for the kids and makes it fun to watch.”

 

On the girls side, Jordan Bradford won the 200 freestyle (2 minutes, 12.99 seconds) and 500 free (5:58.41) to lead Pittsfield’s girls to a 63-30 win.

 

Wahconah’s boys sealed their win with a 1-2 finish in the 100-yard breaststroke and a win in the 4-by-100 relay to end the meet.

 

First, Schweitzer (1:19.14) and Bailey Disanti took the first two places in the 100 breaststroke. Then Jacob Kunzmann, Josh Kunzmann, Disanti and Schweitzer teamed up to win the relay.

 

Schweitzer also won the 500 free in a time of 5:45.31. Pudlo won the 50 free (25.54) and 100 free (58.16).

 

There were plenty of individual highlights on the day in both meets.

 

For the Wahconah girls, Ellie Field was a double winner, posting Western Mass qualifying times in both the 200 individual medley (2:25.03) and 100 free (58.34).

 

Pittsfield’s Liam Mooney made the cut for the state meet in the 100 butterfly (58.28) and the cut for the sectional in the 200 IM (2:22.55), winning first in both events.

 

While Harrington was thrilled to see Mooney qualify for states in the first meet of the year, there were plenty of other things for the Pittsfield boys to be excited about on a day when they ended up on the short end of the scoreboard.

 

“I saw a lot of great things from our new kids,” Harrington said. “I saw a lot of complete swims, proper turns. We also had some mistakes. They didn’t make the difference in the meet, but there were some mental errors.

 

“We have a lot of freshmen. It’s been not quite three weeks of practice for these kids, and for some of these kids, that’s the first swim meet they’ve been in in their life. There were a lot of positives, a lot of good things.”