After a commanding season that saw their swimmers post a perfect 11-0 record in the Queens division, Bayside High School is sending two of their swimmers to the State Championships.
Representing the Commodores in the Federation State Swimming and Diving Championships at Eerie College in Buffalo, February 26-27, will be two of their elite swimmers: James Chang and William Hendershot.
Performances in the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) Swimming and Diving Championships, held at the Flushing Meadows Aquatic Center in Corona on Sunday, February 7, determined which swimmers would get their tickets stamped to the States.
Chang won the 100 butterfly with an impressive time of 54.67, while Hendershot came in first in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:56.87, leaving the competition in his wake.
The Commodores narrowly missed breaking a record, by 12 hundredths of a second, in the 200 medley relay with Chang, Allen Chu, Andrew Garcia and Jay Park posting a time of 1:41.85.
Bayside placed third overall in the competition, but won a gold medal in the 200-medley relay and silver in both the 200 and 400 freestyle relay. Chang and Hendershot won gold in their individual events as well.
Commodores’ coach Henya Goldstein said that, considering they only had five swimmers in the competition, their performance was impressive and gutsy.
“Their performance at the meet reflected their hard work and steadfast dedication to the team,” said Goldstein. “Getting as many points as we did with as little swimmers as we had is pretty huge.”
All of the swimmers who participated in the event had to go the extra mile to perform this year, as a snow storm the day before forced the cancellation of the preliminaries and made a timed final event mandatory.
Chudchane Sanqtippawan, of Francis Lewis High School, set a new meet record in the 100 Breast with a time of :58.58, while Brian McKenna of Queens High School for Science won the 50 freestyle with a time of :21.51, just one hundredth of a second off the meet record.
Bayside coach Henya Goldstein said that all of her swimmers have shown an impressive work ethic this year and that the team set a high water mark for teams to come.
“We have really fast swimmers; a lot of first and second place finishes and a lot of individual accomplishments,” said Goldstein. “We had a really small team, and we did really well in that regard.”
