Lady Rams swim team beats Woodlands in opener
September 18, 2024 at 10:13 p.m.
At the final Lady Rams swim team time trials at the Carver Center, the stopwatch times indicated that something special was in the air and in the water. And head coach Colleen Cahill liked what she was seeing.
Freshman Adriana Martinez was turning in the fastest times in every event.
Returning swimmers Chenoa Marquez, Brenda Cordova and Kim Rivera were a fraction of a second behind the phenom who came into the pool as one of the most competitive swimmers on the Rye YMCA Wave Ryeders. And Estefana Bautista, Mariangel Osorio and Sophia Tellez all placed within 1/100th of a second of one another and mere seconds away from the team's fastest swimmers in the 100- and 50-yard freestyle.
That meant anyone had a chance to make the Lady Rams A-relay teams.
The competitive vibes
"With three relays in each dual meet, that gives our team its best chance to score the most points in the overall team score," according to Cahill. "And that leads me to anticipate a very active season and an ever-evolving team due to progress and growth in our lineup at each meet.”
Cahill turned out to be right because those impressive time trial results were indicative of how well the Lady Rams would do in their first meet, an 80-77 win over Woodlands last Friday (9/13) at the Theodore Young Community Center in White Plains.
That win was even more impressive because they did it without one of their returning co-captains, Morgan Saunders, who injured her knee and was still awaiting clearance. That meant fellow co-captains Tellez and Ariana Orellana had to step up, as did the entire team. And they all did.
The 1-2-3 finish
"We had multiple first-place wins," Cahill said in summarizing the meet results. "The pool we swam in was a 6-lane pool, so the top five swimmers earned points with each team placing up to three swimmers/relays in each event. The highlight for me was the 100-freestyle where Port Chester swimmers placed first, second and third with Kim Rivera, Estefana Bautista and Jazlyn Fernandez finishing 1-2-3 in that order."
Port Chester High School girls’ swim team captains, from left, Morgan Saunders, Sophia Tellez and Ariana Orellana.Courtesy of Colleen Cahill
It was almost another clean sweep in the 200-free with Orellana and Osorio finishing first and second in that order.
The 200-freestyle relay finished first swimming with a quartet revolving around Marquez, Cordova, Bautista and Martinez, the freshman, on anchor.
Martinez had the fastest 50 freestyle split of the meet with a time of 33.39 seconds with Marquez just 0.4 seconds behind her in 33.47 seconds while Cordova was just milliseconds behind them at 33.97.
The competitive instinct
"Having these three so close together gives us the motivation, drive and chance to push ourselves to the point where we can foresee breaking more personal records while dropping our times as the year progresses," according to Cahill. "And with Kim Rivera less than a half a second behind these three at 34.2, it looks as though they are going to push one another, and the times are only going to get better."
She tried to put that into perspective.
"We used to see these times at the end of the season, so I am very hopeful and confident we will see great things with these four swimmers this season," she said.
The notable newcomers
Cahill pointed out that some notable second place finishes came from newcomers to the team. Those swimmers included Adriana Martinez in the 100-yard butterfly, Katherine Condori in the 100-yard backstroke and Cordova in the 200-yard butterfly.
So the optimistic and inspirational Cahill anticipated still more improvement in the Lady Rams’ upcoming out-of-conference meet at Harrison Friday (9/20) at 4:30 p.m.
"We will face very steep competition and use our competitive drive to help us swim even faster times on our way to breaking more personal records," she said. "Especially since the girls are working so hard to be the best they can possibly be."
Effort behind improvement
Cahill wasn't kidding. Because the Lady Rams hold pre-class workouts daily in their Carver Center home pool before school starts and stage weightlifting and calisthenics dry land workouts at the high school at regular intervals.
But that kind of dedication is a tribute to Cahill, a former collegiate swimmer at Fordham/Tarrytown and a teacher in the Port Chester School District who has turned around a losing local swim team culture.
So you can expect to see continuing swim team progress in the weeks to come. It's there in the air the Lady Rams breathe as well as in the waves they are making in the pool.
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