AUDREY COOK dives into the pool during Wakefield’s win over Arlington-Watertown last week. (Casey Hotz Photo)
By CASSIDY SILVA
MALDEN — There isn’t much you can do against a team that fights for their seniors. The Wakefield girls’ swim team proved that much in their meet last Tuesday in a thrilling 90-80 for the Warriors against the Arlington-Watertown cooperative girls’ team at Malden High.
It was Wakefield’s senior meet, which as assistant coach Tash Brown puts it, “acknowledges the seniors and lets them know that they are loved and we’re going to miss them.”
Thanks to the pride and dedication of the underclassmen and parents, the six seniors (Captain Laila Atoui, Captain Audrey Cook, Samantha Bordonaro, Teagan Norton, Gabby Padilla Mujo and Deyalin Medina) strode through iridescent streamers to a tunnel of excited claps and cheers. They looked to their right and saw a beautiful display of banners and posters for each senior coupled with presents sitting below each.
The seniors were ecstatic. Senior Gabby Padilla Mujo said, “I’m super grateful for them for doing it for us.”
“I love my banner,” exclaimed senior Teagan Norton.
But the hype didn’t end there as the Warriors warmed up with passion unlike ever before this season.
In a pre-meet interview with Brown, she noted that “the energy of senior meet and it being at our home pool will help them out,” and she couldn’t have been more right as the team locked a laser focus on winning the meet for their seniors.
The swimmers took their marks in teams of four for the 200-yard medley relay. The whistle sounded and the room erupted in deafening shouts as Wakefield raced to nab an early lead. The Warriors took the advantage with a 1st-place finish in lane 3 by a team of freshman Carolyn Cote, captain Audrey Cook, sophomore Allie Degray and junior Lucy Wagner, a 2nd-place finish from sophomore Daphne Mogan, freshman Elie Wagner, captain Laila Atoui and senior Samantha Bordonaro, and a 6th-place finish from freshman Mayte de Alvarenga, sophomore Pyper Tallent, junior Angelina Martinez and senior Teagan Norton.
Wakefield continued to make a splash in the 200-yard freestyle with Cook leading the charge for a 1st-place finish (by a slim margin of .59 seconds) while also taking off 0.46 seconds for a new personal best. Freshman Daisy McGourty took 3rd place while Tallent finished 6th in her first time competing in the event.
The victory was well-fought with Cook, “leaving it all to the end. It was a really good race, she picked it up in that last 25 yards to make sure she got the points for the team,” in the words of head coach Laura McCormack.
Another 1st-place finish came in the 200-yard individual medley from Elie Wagner with a new personal record of 2:32.47 while Cote placed in 4th place and freshman Teodora Elezovic placed 6th. After the event, Wakefield held a 12-point lead over Arlington-Watertown.
The shortest event of the meet, the 50-yard freestyle, saw Wakefield slash even more times across both heats. Heat 1 saw Degray record a new personal best of 26 seconds flat and was awarded a 1st-place finish. Bordonaro touched the wall next for Wakefield in 5th place and Lucy Wagner rounded out heat 1 in 6th place maintaining a modest 10-point lead. Heat 2 saw Medina cut 1.61 seconds off her previous record for a 2nd-place finish. Following up, Tallent took 4th place and sophomore Molly Preston took 6th place.
The seniors on both teams exchanged heartwarming flowers during the break, congratulating each other before a brief warmup to lock the team back in.
Degray wasn’t done yet though. After the break, she shot into the 100-yard butterfly for yet another 1st-place finish. Atoui pushed for a 3rd-place finish while McGourty fastened Wakefield’s 14-point lead with a 5th-place finish before handing the reins over to Elie Wagner, Medina and De Alvarenga for the 100-yard freestyle. There, Elie Wagner ferociously took 1st place in her first time competing in the event with a 3.55 second gap from the 2nd place finisher while securing a qualifying time for both sectionals and states. Medina took yet another personal best by 2.05 seconds for a 5th place finish while De Alvarenga took a modest 6th place finish (competing in this event for the first time). The team secured a 12-point lead which is crucial going into the longest event of the meet.
The 500-yard freestyle is a test of determination. Martinez pushed in a stellar kick to secure a 2nd place finish while Mogan followed closely with a vital 3rd place. Norton rounded out the roster with a 6th place finish, continuing her streak of shedding seconds off each meet for a new personal best of 8:07.37.
The relays kicked off again with the 200-yard freestyle when a team of Bordonaro, Atoui, Cote, and Lucy Wagner cinched 3rd place. A team of Tallent, Elezovic, Martinez and McGourty took a 5th-place finish, and a team of Medina, De Alvarenga, Norton and Preston took 6th.
It was then that the shrill squeal of a whistle ripped unexpectedly from the official. The room lapsed into heart-stopping silence as the official announced the current score of the meet: Wakefield was tied with Arlington-Watertown in a 62-62 deadlock. The swimmers of the next event, the 100-yard backstroke, felt the weight of the meet drop onto their shoulders as swimmers and coaches looked on with determinitation.
The 100-yard backstroke was strung taut with tension as Atoui, Cote and Mogan settled into the water. Eyes looking straight forward, the swimmers darted at the shriek of the whistle. The room was a cacophony of screams, whistles and shrieks as the team cheered them on from the poolside. A short minute later, Wakefield had upset the stalemate with their 2nd sweep of the season in the 100-yard backstroke. Cote placed 1st with a new personal best of 1:08.59, Mogan placed 2nd with a 1:12.53 and Laila placed 3rd with a 1:14.37. With Cote’s tremendous efforts, she earned herself a qualifying time for sectionals along with a revitalized Wakefield lead over Arlington-Watertown by 10 points.
When asked about the decisive moment in the meet, coach McCormack agreed that, “It was coming down to the wire. To have us get 1, 2, and 3 in the 100 back gave us a little bit of breathing room for a minute. It was really epic for Cote, Mogan and Atoui to clasp that 1, 2, 3.”
But the meet wasn’t over yet as they headed into the final two races. Unfortunately, Wakefield held a disadvantage in the 100-yard breaststroke having only entered two swimmers instead of the typical three. Nevertheless, Cook pulled through once more with a 1st-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke and Elezovic finished with a 5th-place finish to maintain the lead.
The pool area was alive with chatter leading up to the final event of the meet. A lot was riding on the 400-yard freestyle relay: the dream to clinch a win for the seniors, the underclassmen’s hope to deliver the best meet possible for the senior, the desire to overcome a larger opponent with a smaller team for the coaches. But murmurs among parents twisted the air into a suffocating pressure: the Warriors must nab 1st-place to secure the win.
But Degray, Elie Wagner, Lucy Wagner and Cook were up to the task. With a stunning display of passion, the team worked together to take 1st place by a whopping 10.80 seconds. But the Warriors weren’t done. McGourty, Bordonaro, Mogan, and Elezovic took a 4th finish while Medina, Norton, Martinez and Tallent took 6th to finish the meet with a final score of 90-80 Wakefield.
The Warriors couldn’t have pulled it off without the help of the seniors.
“They’re all such huge contributers to the team. Each one of them has their own individual element that they bring,” says McCormack. “For them to have this experience to win at home during their senior meet…it’s so good for them.”
The team hopes to push the morale into their final regular season meet against the Stoneham-Melrose cooperative team today, 4 p.m. at Medford High.
