Staff Writer
First-year Eleanor Roosevelt High School swimming coach Andrew Zanghi said he was eager to be part of a program with such a rich winning history this winter.
The Raider girls have won 12 consecutive Prince George’s County championships, and the defending county champion boys team has won six titles since 2002.
Then Zanghi realized that along with that excitement came the pressure to continue the program’s success.
His nerves were soon calmed when it quickly became evident this year’s squad was something special.
“There are high expectations year in and year out, and to some degree it’s a little daunting because you’re really expected to win,” Zanghi said. “Then you’re thrown in and it’s a large team with great parent support and there’s a whole culture behind it and it’s really wonderful.”
Zanghi had not experienced the Raiders’ historical rivalry with Bowie firsthand before Saturday’s dual meet season finale, but he’d certainly heard about it. Every lineup this season, Zanghi said, was geared toward learning the best possible combinations for the Bowie showdown.
A dominant performance — Roosevelt’s teams won 18 of 22 events by a combined 146 points — set the tone for the Prince George’s County Championships, scheduled for Saturday at the Fairland Aquatic Center in Laurel.
The Roosevelt boys and girls teams enter championship season with 13-0 dual meet records and largely have been untested. Zanghi said that although the team is confident about the county meet, it is still wary of the competition, namely Bowie.
“We really kind of look at is as everyone else against us,” Zanghi said. “We know that there are some really fast swimmers out there and when you put them all together, they are going to be competitive on a level with our swimmers. Our goal is to have the top two in every event as much as possible.”
That could happen, which is a frightening notion for the rest of the county.
Roosevelt’s girls won nine of 12 events and went one-two in four of them at last year’s county championships. They had six of the top 10 individual scorers in the meet, and five of them are still on the team: Courtney Like-Mathews, Emily Boluda, Natasha Chomko, Jennifer Clune and Cecilia Lapp-Stoltzfus.
The Roosevelt boys snatched last year’s title from two-time defending champion Bowie by winning seven events. The Raiders return all four of the swimmers who finished in the top 10 of individual scoring: Lee Friedman, Dennis Witol, Daniel Chavez and Pedro Wolff.
In addition to these returnees, a talented freshman class that includes Michael Stevens and Christian Dixon has helped fill in the few holes that might have given other teams hope.
“I think what makes this year so special, especially on the boys side, is the depth of our team,” Friedman said. “The past couple of years we have had very good swimmers but only enough to get first in a few events, and even if we got first we didn’t get second and third. Our freshman class has really bulked up our team. We always have someone who can win an event in our meet, whatever it is.”
The Bowie girls last won the county title in 1999. The Bulldogs have finished second to Roosevelt every year during its 12-year run.
Roosevelt boys won counties for the first time in three years last year. The Raiders have six total county titles since 2002. Bowie won counties in 2003, 2007 and 2009-10.
The Bowie and Roosevelt boys have only been separated at counties by an average of 18 points since 2002.
Bowie junior Steven Rigby is the highest returning scorer outside of Roosevelt on the boys side. Laurel senior Jade Hill tied with Boluda and Chomko with 37 points at last year’s county championship.
“Last year we were in the hunt for it pretty much until the end and then they walked away from us,” Bowie coach Maggie Fletcher said. “Our kids are fully aware of Roosevelt. They could potentially go top two in everything.”
jbeekman@gazette.net