It&os;s the first win over the Red Rovers for the Stateliners&os; seniors.
View full sizePhillipsburg swimmer Braden Ham competes in boys 100 meter breast stroke during a meet against Easton Area High School."Easton had a bunch of first-place guys that we knew we wouldn't beat," Phillipsburg senior Cameron Pruneau said. "We went two, three, four a bunch of times. The two and three knock out the first place, so that's all we had to do and do it consistently."Pruneau knew the Stateliners were going to win after setting a school record in the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1 minute, 37.09 seconds.
"I knew that it was the last event here for me and I just had to push it out," Pruneau said. "After the last flip turn I saw that Easton was ahead of me and I told myself don't breathe, breathe all you want afterward. I didn't look, I just kept going and when I hit the wall, I saw we won and we beat the record by two seconds. The coaches were saying we would get second in this event, but this was the big one. When we won this, I knew we were going to win the meet."The strategy Phillipsburg implemented was a lesson learned against Moravian Academy on Dec 12 when Phillipsburg tied the Lions 85-85.
"We tied a meet with Moravian and I think we needed that to show that one point means a lot," Phillipsburg coach Tracy Herdlein said. "It showed that everyone needs to do well, from first place on down."
"We planned out the meet over and over and we knew it would be a tough meet," Herdlein said. "We needed a couple of flips and it happened."One of the flips for Phillipsburg was sweeping the top three spots in the 500 freestyle. Connor McCormick won in 5:54.32, and behind him were teammates Ricardo Castaneda and Jonathon Babula.
The other flip was in the 50 freestyle. Pruneau swam neck-and-neck race against Easton's Robert Becker before pulling away in the final few meters to win in 23 seconds.
"Nobody thought we could win this meet," Pruneau said. "Our coaches made a bunch of switches. They normally like to fill the lanes, but instead this time they put the three best in each lane and had them go for the win."The Easton girls jumped to an early lead and rolled to a 133-31 win.
"For the girls, we knew it was going to be a tough meet," Phillipsburg coach Traci Ruane said. "Easton has always had a tough girls program."Amanda Russo of Easton qualified for the District 11 meet for the first time in the 500 freestyle in 6:00.44.
"She has been trying for years to make district time," Easton coach Earl Page said. "She is very hard on herself, but tonight she made district time in the 500 (freestyle)."The junior has spent more time working on the 500 freestyle this season because of how close her times had been to the district qualifier in the past.
"It took three years of so much hard work, I am so happy that I finally made it junior year," Russo said. "Last year, I was trying to get into the mood and swing of things, trying to keep up and keep making goals and I worked extra hard this year to do everything I needed to do in practice to reach this goal."