Photo Caption: Storm senior Greg Kamensky relaxes after his dominating win in the 100-meter Free
J. Daniel Pearson
For Positively Osceola
In what could be a championship preview of next month’s Orange Belt Conference Swimming Championships, Celebration hosted Harmony in a dual meet at Lakeside Park on Wednesday.
The Storm boys’ team, who will be favored to take the OBC title, went to 5-0 on the season with a 117-56 win over Harmony. Last week, the Storm also defeated Gateway (217-54) and Osceola (204-55) in a tri-meet. It was much closer in the girls’ meet, as the Storm edged the Longhorns in the swimming events by an 84-82 score. In the same three-way meet last week, the Storm girls defeated Osceola (167-71) and Gateway (153-105).
“It was senior night, so we let our swimmers decide which individual events they wanted to swim in,” Storm Head Coach Kelly Walton said. “Because of that, I would say that we did not have our strongest lineup at each event.”
Leading the way for the boys’ team was senior Roman Sukhorukov, who won both the 200-free and the 100-breast. Other impressive performances came from Felipe Costa, a senior who earned all-state honors in the 100-backstroke last year, who won that event and senior Greg Kamensky, won the 100-free (0:58.18) by more than seven seconds over the next closest finisher.
In all, the Storm boys won seven of the eight individual swimming events and all three relays. Other individual winners for the Storm included Cunningham in the 50-free (0:25.25), Nate Esteban in the 100-fly (1:32.75).
Harmony picked up wins in the 200-Individual Medley with Bryan Wong (2:37.32) and in the 500-free with Alexander Tanon (6:28.90).
The girls’ meet came down to the final event with the Celebration Storm taking first in the 400-free relay to hold on for the two-point win. In fact the victory could be attributed to the relays, as Celebration also won the 400-Free Relay.
Individual winners for the Storm included a double win by Sarah Moreno in the 100-free and 200-Individual Medley and wins by Sophia Galvao in the 100-breast and Monoi LeHelley in the 50-free.
The Longhorns had a double individual win from Savannah Steele in the 100-fly and 50-free.
Heading into the Orange Belt Conference Championships on Oct. 7, Walton says she feels good about the possibility of a Celebration sweep. “I would think our guys will be favored in the boys meet,” Walton said. “Our girls are right there with Harmony. Diving was not calculated in the dual meet so those points will be important. But the two teams are very close in talent and it should be a great meet.”
Photo by Dan Pearson
