The CARIFTA region swimmers represented well at yet other high school championships in America. This time the competition was the 2016 New England Prep School Swimming and Diving held from Saturday March 5 to Sunday March 6 at the Deerfield Academy. Suffield’s Shaun Johnson, Andover’s Christian Alberga and Choate’s Omar John were among the medals at the competition.
The CARIFTA bound Shaun Johnson won 4 medals from the 4 events that she contested. The Suffield team of Kiersten Ness 55.29, Johnson 51.42, Sydney Winters 51.25 and Eva Crouse 51.68 won the 400 yard freestyle relay in a time of 3:29.64. They just missed the 2014 Championship record of 3:29.36.Her 200 yard medley team finished 2nd in 1:46.07. Johnson’s split on the butterfly leg was 25.49.That relay team is now the 4th fastest in Championship history. In the 100 yard butterfly Johnson recorded a personal best of 57.49 to win the Silver medal. That performance has her positioned at 14 all time in Championship history. She would be in the top 20 all time for the 50 yard freestyle when she won Silver in another personal best of 24.14.She is now the 15th fastest swimmer in the history of the Championships.
Alberga had his best placing in the 200 yard freestyle relay when Andover won Silver. Christian clocked an impressive 20.76 to anchor the team home to a total time of 1:25.48.That places the Andover 7th in the all-time rankings. Christian provided another quick anchor leg this time in the 400 yard freestyle where he clocked 45.98 to help Andover to the Bronze in 3:08.94. In the 50 yard freestyle Alberga was 4th in a time of 21.33. He was just off his personal best of 21.30 that he recorded in the morning heats. In the 100 yard freestyle he lowered his personal standard twice. In the morning he clocked 47.02. In the final he went out in 22.36 and came back in a new personal best of 47.01 for 6th place.
Omar John of Antigua and Barbuda won his medal in the 200 yard medley relay. His Choate team clocked 1:36.90 for Bronze with John making his contribution with a 27.59 breaststroke leg. He would record a personal best of 1:00.32 (split time 28.04) to make the Championship final. He would finish 8th in the final with a time 1:00.99.Omar would have a time drop over more than 8 seconds to record a new personal standard of 2:04.06 in the 200 yard individual medley to place 20th overall.
Jamaican Thomas Issa of Choate bettered his personal best of 22.45 in the 50 yard freestyle when he started the Choate 200 yard freestyle relay. He posted 22.34 to help them to an overall time of 1:27.76. He would also better his 100 yard freestyle time of 50.27 in the 100 yard freestyle with a 49.22 in the morning heats. He would finish 5th in the B final with a time of 49.39.He would finish 2nd in the B final of the 100 yard backstroke with a time of 55.94.Swimming for exhibition his Choate team clocked an overall time of 3:22.20 for the 12th fastest time of the day. Issa split 48.58 handling the third leg duties.
Jada Brown of Jamaica who represented Hotchkiss had times of 1:20.36 and 6:27.53 in the 100 yard butterfly and 500 yard freestyle respectively. Her team swam for exhibition in the 200 yard freestyle relay where they posted a time of 1:58.96. Brown clocked 28.41 on the 3rd leg.
Andover won the boys competition tallying 340.5 points Choate was 5th with 244 points. In the girls category Suffield was 3rd with 270 points while Choate was 7th with 170 points.
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