Wayne Hills coach Mike Shale after being thrown into the pool by his team. (Photo: Chris Pedota)
Mike Shale will gladly trade some extra laundry for a championship.
The longtime Wayne Hills coach, wearing his maroon team shirt and pants, jumped into the pool on Saturday to reward his girls team for winning the Passaic County Swimming Championships, held at Passaic Tech.
“If that’s the price I have to pay, I’ll live,” Shale said.
It’s a team tradition that’s turned into a de facto annual ritual. Wayne Hills has taken six of the last seven county titles and Shale has gotten soaked for all six wins.
“You never know if you should bring extra clothes because you don’t want to jinx anything,” Shale joked. “Then again, you don’t want to be driving home (wet).”
Wayne Hills got individual wins from Sam Kauffman (100 free and 100 back), Cassandra Lee (100 fly) and Nicole Shubaderov (200 IM) and team wins in the 200 medley relay and 400 free relay.
It all added up to 383 total points for Wayne Hills, who took the event by an impressive 86 points.
The Passaic Tech boys team also won the county meet by accumulating 418 points, followed by Wayne Valley (276) and Wayne Hills (274).
The Bulldogs players and coaches raved about how much it helped to have the meet at their own pool, the annual host site for the county tournament. On Saturday, the Bulldogs sure looked like they were at home.
“It makes it extra special,” sophomore Joe Malicki said. “We have our fans to cheer for us. We have an extra crowd. It’s like an extra lane for us because we have more people cheering.”
When you walk into the pool, it’s hard to miss the newly installed school record board by the entrance. It’s probably the most visual and most glaring example that Passaic Tech is better now than ever before. Of all the records listed, all but one came in 2015.
“Isn’t it awesome,” coach Denise Aronson said after the meet. “And we broke a lot more records today too.”
If you missed my coverage from this weekend, here’s my story on Passaic Tech’s win, on Wayne Hills’ win, the final results and times on Saturday, “The Best of the Rest” from the county meet, our photo gallery and our feature on Wayne Hills senior Sam Kauffman from The Record’s Saturday edition.
Here are some other news and notes from around North Jersey swimming:
Boys
Bergen Catholic, the No. 1 ranked team, survived quite a scare on Tuesday in one of its first close meets of the season. The Crusaders held off Teaneck for a 92-78 win in a matchup that wasn’t decided until the final race. The Highwaymen led through six races, with reliable contributors Jason Arthur and Tristan Highet both winning two individual events. Teaneck went into the last event needing a 1-2 finish from its relay teams in the 400fr, but fell short. Bergen Catholic won the event in 3:19.55, a time that’s fast enough to win the Bergen County Meet of Champions in some years.
A few weeks ago, Don Bosco coach John Darcey told me two big goals were to get closer to Bergen Catholic, a division rival, and pick up some more wins. By those measures, the past week was a huge success. Bergen Catholic improved to 5-0 by beating Don Bosco on Thursday, but the Ironmen got a result it can be happy with. In the Ironmen’s 107-63 loss, they earned the most points against the Crusaders since 2011. Senior Tyler Zanki picked up Don Bosco’s lone win by finishing the 100 breast stroke in 1:01.08.
Don Bosco achieved its other goal on Monday with a 90-80 win over Wayne Valley, the Passaic County runner-up. It’s been a real turnaround season in Ramsey. Even though the Ironmen’s record at 3-3-1 doesn’t pop out, some of the underlying numbers show a clearer picture. Don Bosco’s tie with Paramus Catholic came against a team it lost to by ten points in 2014-15.
With just a few weeks left in the regular season, the division leaders in the Big North are Bergen Catholic (5-0), Passaic Tech (7-0), Northern Highlands (5-2) and NV/Demarest (5-0). Teaneck is the overall wins leader at 9-2.
In the NJIC, both Rutherford (4-0) and Harrison (3-3) are perfect in conference play thus far.
Girls
There was some controversy at the end of the Tuesday meet between Northern Highlands and NV/Demarest. The Highlanders girls lost the meet, 86-84, after one of their relay swimmers got disqualified because of the cap she was wearing, according to Northern Highlands coach Tom Viscardi and NV/Demarest coach Sam Puso. Viscardi argued that it was a high school cap used not a club cap so the longtime head coach issued a challenge to the result. He said he’s optimistic that the ruling will change in his team’s favor. But on Sunday night, Viscardi said by text that he hasn’t gotten an official answer yet.
One of the feel good moments of the Passaic County meet came in the 50-yard freestyle, won by Passaic’s Tianalee Bracho. Passaic is the true underdog story. Besides Bracho’s two individual events, Passaic didn’t finish higher than ninth in any boys or girls race.
Tianalee Bracho of Passaic in the Girls 200 Yard Freestyle Relay (Photo: Chris Pedota)
The Indians finished a distant last in the boys and girls meet overall, just as it did last season. But in a sport dominated by club swimmers who compete year-round, Passaic faces a host of challenges with numbers and resources. If you haven’t read it, check out Darren Cooper’s story on the program when he explained that Passaic’s coaches sometimes have to teach their athletes how to swim when they join the team.
In the Big North, the division leaders are IHA (4-0), Wayne Hills (7-0-1), Northern Highlands (4-1-1), Pascack Regional (5-0).
Leonia/Palisades Park leads the NJIC with a 7-1 record and is perfect through five divisional meets. The Lions most recent victory came on Thursday against Hasbrouck Heights. Catalina Castellon took four events in the 115-55 win. Castellon had a total of five first-places finishes during the week for Leonia/Palisades Park, who also blew out Mahwah.
The biggest meet coming up this week takes place on Wednesday when No. 1 Immaculate Heart faces Westfield at the Westfield YMCA. Blue Eagles coach Jason Schlereth told me last week that Westfield is the only team in the last eight seasons who has beaten IHA.