Greyhounds swim to 14th in Class L

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NEW HAVEN — The Naugatuck boys swim team finished the season with a 14th-place showing March 11 in the Class L state championships at Southern Connecticut State University.

The Greyhounds compiled a team score of 134 points. New Canaan ran away with the title with 776 points. Darien finished as runner-up with 620 points.

Naugy scored in six of the 12 events but had no entrants in the 50, 100, 200 and 500 freestyle races along with the 100 backstroke and 100 breaststroke.

The 200 medley relay team of Bailey Ceryak, Spencer Maher, Alex Manasoiu and Dale Wakeley finished 12th in 1 minute, 47.3 seconds. Maher also helped the 200 freestyle relay squad finish 10th in 1:33.86 with Manasoiu, Austin Herb and Wakeley.

Maher finished just out of the top ten in both the 200 IM (11th, 2:00.54) and the 100 fly (12th, 54.63).

The 400 freestyle squad of brothers Austin and Steve Herb, Jacob Hall and Ceryak posted an 18th-place time of 3:40.42.

The Greyhounds racked up 25 points in the earlier diving competition with Ethan Phaneuf (14th) and Justin Stone (15th).

Naugatuck finished the regular season 8-5 in dual meets and took second at the Naugatuck Valley League championships.

The Greyhounds will lose a group of seniors, including Wakeley and Austin Herb, that finished second in the NVL all four years. First-year head coach Dan Knepple will look to build on the foundation left by the seniors.

“We have a solid core coming back,” said Knepple after the NVL championship. “If these guys coming back work hard in the offseason, we can build off of what we accomplished this year. Out of 40 guys we had only seven work out in the offseason. We are going to try and get those numbers up, so we will be in shape when the season starts next year.”