NA Girls Swimming Heads Back to Non-Public B Final
Newark Academy swimming coach Billy Blomn thinks this is the best girls’ team he’s had in two decades of coaching. If they can avenge the last year’s loss in the NJSIAA Non-Public B Final to top-seeded Trinity Fall on Feb. 24 at The College of New Jersey, they could cement that.
“The girls worked really hard to get here,'' Billy said according NJ.com after the win over St. Rose at Raritan Bay YMCA in Perth Amboy on Feb. 18. “This is probably the best female group that I’ve had in my 20 years. I’m just hoping that we can keep the excitement up for one more meet.”
It was a true team effort for the Minutemen as they won eight of the 11 events, including all three relays. Danning Hu ’20, Maya Lily Knoller ’22, Emily Tang ’21 and Monique Iben ’21 started the winning with the 200-yard medley relay, finishing in 1:56.4. Monique, Sadie Kim ’22, Claire Ou ’21, and Bridget Bowen ’19 won the 200-freestyle relay in 1:47.54. Bridget, Claire, Danning and Lily finished the 400-freestyle relay in 4:08.32. Monique won the closest event with just a .05 second lead at 26.62 in the 50-freestyle.
And the future looks bright for the team with Maya Lily only a freshman and winning the 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke for NA, while also swimming on the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.
“I swim a lot outside of school as well and I just have a lot of confidence in myself as well as from my teammates that I’m able to contribute to the team, so it’s great,” Maya Lily said about contributing as a freshman. “I’m excited and I’m looking forward to what’s going to happen next with our team and for the next three years of my career.”
Of course, she’d like to help her upperclassmen teammates avenge the last seasons loss as a freshman.
“That would be incredible,” Maya Lily said. “I’m really excited.”
Read the whole story on NJ.com here.
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