Greyhounds swim past Hawks to victory

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NAUGATUCK — Six different Greyhounds won individual events to pace Naugatuck to a 99-81 victory over Woodland on Tuesday afternoon.

Chris Branco (200 free), Harald Hersted (200 IM and 500 free), Jake Branco (50 free), Kevin McMullen (100 fly), Kyle Conrad (100 free) and James Streifel (100 back) all won events for Naugy. Lindsay Boland (diving) and Patrick O’Dell (100 breast) won individual events for the Hawks.

Naugy coach Jim McKee said the results reflect his team’s ability and continuing improvement.

“We have depth,” McKee said. “We had at least 72 best times in this meet.”

The Hounds set the tone for the meet by capturing the top two spots in the opening event, the 200 medley relay, and won each of the first four events. William Wright, Hersted, Conrad and James Vaz won the 200 medley relay in a time of 1 minute, 43.51 seconds, about 10 seconds ahead of teammates Riker Mitchell, Dan Sigetti, Richard Mitchell and Jake Branco.

Naugy did its damage in the individual freestyle events. The Greyhounds controlled the 50, 100 and 500 individual freestyle events and took three of the top four spots in each race.

In the meet’s fourth race, the 50 free, Jake Branco edged out Woodland’s Adam Trumbley with a time of 24.27 seconds, less than a second ahead of the Hawks’ swimmer. Eric Hanley (25.38 seconds) and Richard Mitchell (26.06) finished third and fourth, respectively, for the Greyhounds.

Naugatuck’s Adam Branco competes in the breast stroke during a swim meet Tuesday versus Woodland. The Greyhounds defeated the Hawks 99-81. -LARAINE WESCHLER

Conrad won the 100 free in a time of 48.42 seconds, about three seconds in front of Vaz, who placed second. Naugy grabbed the top three positions in the 500 free, as Hersted beat out Wright and Chris Branco as the Greyhounds took 13 of 16 possible points.

McKee said Naugy’s performance can be connected to the team’s hard work in practice. Many of Naugatuck’s individual times reflect its effort outside of meets.

“I ask them to give a lot in practice,” McKee said. “This meet is one of the paydays of that hard work.”

Despite an impressive performance from Boland in the diving, the Greyhounds still took more overall points in the event. Isabelle Moody, Kaitlin Carter and Joe Caputo took second through fourth, respectively, for the Greyhounds.

Woodland also won the 200 free relay as the team of Andy O’Dell, Patrick O’Dell, Trumbley and Eric Dietz won in a time of 1:37.27. Andy O’Dell, Trumbley, Dietz and Erik Beaudoin won the 400 free relay, the meet’s final event, in a time of 3:41.13.

“We knew Naugatuck had a lot of depth, so I let a lot of people swim different events,” said Woodland coach Tom Currier.

“Everybody had best times and we had some state qualifying times.”

Both the Hawks and Hounds hit the road for dual meets Friday as Woodland visits Haddam-Killingworth while Naugatuck travels to Waterbury to face Holy Cross.