Photo by Philip Southern Walled Lake Northern junior Jakob Barnard dives in to start the 100-yard freestyle during the Feb. 6 Oakland County Boys Swimming and Diving Championship meet at Waterford Mott. Birmingham Groves took home the team title for the second straight year.

Falcons boys swim team
finishes first again

By Jon Malavolti
C & G Sports Writer

WATERFORD — Birmingham Groves cruised to its second consecutive Oakland County Boys Swimming and Diving Championship title Feb. 6 at Waterford Mott.

The Falcons racked up an impressive 332 points en route to the title, placing first in five of the 12 events.

“Overall, we couldn’t be happier with how they did. They really showed great spirit,” Groves coach Matt Watson said of his team. “And that’s what’s most important. They had a lot of fun, so we really loved that.”

Birmingham Seaholm placed second with 268.50 points, followed by Birmingham Brother Rice (157), Lake Orion High (143), Novi High (140.50), Clarkston High (121), South Lyon High (118), Walled Lake Northern (112), Troy Athens (110.50) and Bloomfield Hills Lahser (104) closing out the top-10 team finishers.

Retiring Athens coach Dale Rahn was honored during the meet for his contributions to the sport after 39 years of coaching the Red Hawks.

“Coaches and athletes spend a lot of time focusing on this meet … because it’s one month out from the state meet,” Rahn said. “When we set this meet up back in 1975-76, that was really our terms of thinking. Let’s set up a championship meet in our area —and Oakland County is obviously a very strong county in terms of swimming — that we can find out where we’re at and where we need to go for that last month as we point toward the state meet.”

The rest of the teams that picked up points at the meet are Troy High (93), Beverly Hills Detroit Country Day (77), North Farmington (76), Auburn Hills Avondale (74), Farmington High (67), Rochester Hills Stoney Creek (58), Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood (43), White Lake Lakeland (42), Madison Heights Lamphere (36), Waterford United (27), Walled Lake Western (23), Rochester High (22.50), Bloomfield Hills Andover (20), Berkley High (16), Rochester Adams (13), Highland-Milford (11), West Bloomfield High (5) and Walled Lake Central (2).

Clawson High may not have finished in the team scoring, but the Trojans were able to take away some valuable lessons after partaking in their first county meet in a few years.

“We’re watching all the races here to get some different techniques and get us to swim faster,” Clawson coach Joe Turner said. “It’s very fast competition, a great meet. You see some great times from some of these great swimmers in Oakland County, and my kids are getting a chance to learn from some of the best.”

Country Day coach Marc Fazio highlighted an advantage his slightly smaller school gets by competing against the larger ones at the county meet as it regroups and focuses on states.

“Being a Division 3 school, going up against these teams, this meet in many ways is going to be faster than our state meet,” Fazio said. “Oakland County is one of the fastest regions in the nation. And here, they are all together in this meet — it’s fantastic. I love this meet.”

North Farmington coach Mike Harfoot noted another benefit for teams such as his, which features several underclassmen.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys, a lot of sophomores that don’t have a lot of big-meet experience. So today was a good learning experience for them,” Harfoot said.

Groves opened and closed the meet with relay wins, finishing first in the 200-yard medley relay and the 400 freestyle relay. Seaholm, meanwhile, won the 200 freestyle relay.

Individually, senior Nick McGowan took home the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke titles for Groves. Junior Rob McGowan added a first-place finish in the 200 freestyle for the Falcons.

Avondale senior Bryan Williams won the 50 and 500 freestyle races. He said the strong competition was key to his success.

“It definitely fuels your fire,” he said. “I love competition. It makes events fun. Everyone’s trying to go out and do their best. You swim your best times. You push each other.”

Walled Lake Northern senior Cole Riley took first in the 100 butterfly, while Novi junior Joon Chung won the 200 IM and 100 breaststroke races.

Clarkston senior Jordan Zendejas won the diving title, edging last year’s champion, Lamphere senior Chris Ervasti, who finished in second this year.

“It was good competition,” Ervasti said, summarizing the elite level of talent in his event and throughout the rest of the meet.

For more photos from the meet, check out our Web site at www.  candgnews.com.

You can reach Sports Writer Jon Malavolti at jmalavolti@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1040.