Preview | Free | Back | Breast | Fly | Relays | Recap

The Thunderbolts and Cruisers had an absolute shoot out of a meet this morning in what might end up deciding the Division 3 championship. Donaldson Run came in as the slight favorite, but they had to overcome the natural home pool advantage CP had–furthermore, Crosspointe had a lot of energy and threw everything they possibly could at the visiting squad.

Freestyle got off to a fast start with DR taking an early sweep in the 8-under girls–the little Thunderbolts were huge for Donaldson Run all morning, scoring 30 of 36 possible points. Crosspointe responded well, getting 8 points from the 9-10 girls and a huge performance from Paul Mullen to win the 11-12 boys 50 free race. DR controlled much of freestyle, going up 53-37, but CP actually improved on their seeds by 1 point in the first 10 races.

Donaldson Run had a good start to backstroke with James Madden breaking the pool record set in 2011 before the 8-under girls got to work. CP controlled much of the backstroke events, getting an important win from Chase Brindisi in 9-10 boys 50m back before the 9-10 girls went 1-2. The 13-14s flipped a bunch of points in favor of the home team after the boys took 8 points before the girls swept, tying the meet at 81 apiece. Phoebe Shapiro and Kelly Derasmo finished things off, getting first and second, putting the score at 92-88 in DR’s favor–CP had improved by 5 points halfway through the meet and started to feel the momentum, but DR sensed the shift and got busy in the second half.

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Breaststroke and butterfly were dominated by Donaldson Run–Evie Maloney stepped up to take an important 5 point win over Savannah Harris in the 9-10 girls race before Charlie Greenwood dropped a 35 in team record-setting fashion. The Thunderbolts got big swims from their seniors in two races that looked to be problematic–Henry Rehr won from lane 2 in the boy’s sprint before Anna Trainum came up with a huge time drop to get 3 points in second place. Crosspointe swam a bunch of great efforts in fly, but Donaldson Run won 7 of 10 races, making it impossible for the Cruisers to inch back in.

DR was up 196-164 going into relays, needing only 3 to win–the Thunderbolts won 7 of 12 relays and finished on top 231-189. Crosspointe swam a terrific meet and saw numerous time improvements–furthermore, the Cruisers proved that they are a power in D3 and have truly established themselves at the top of the league. Donaldson Run might be running away with D3 this summer and will be very tough to beat at Relay Carnival on Wednesday. Thank you to everyone who made this meet energetic and exciting–we look forward to seeing how you do down the stretch!