Low numbers don’t stop swim team

by Eric Keppeler
Lewiston Porter Sentinel, September 30, 2006

They’re used to competing in high school athletics with smaller numbers. It’s just the way it is at Lewiston-Porter, with the smallest student population of any school in the Niagara Frontier League.

The smaller numbers have more of an impact in some sports than in others. For example, the Lancers swim team is pretty lean this season in terms of personnel and experience. The team has struggled to win even a single meet, but there are individual athletes who are thriving against some tough competition in the NFL.

“We’re very young this year,” Lancers coach Joe Lauzonis said. “We lost some very good seniors, but this group works very hard. We’ve had to go with some of the younger swimmers this year, so we have some seventh and eighth graders on our roster. They’re doing quite well, and they’re only going to get better.”

Probably the most successful swimmer so far on this year’s roster is junior Bobbi Jo Tenke, one of the team’s two captains and a specialist in the sprints. A sectional qualifier a year ago, she also went to the state meet on a relay team with the departed Sandra Schmitz, Elizabeth Krause and Leah Matthews. Schmitz was an exchange student who returned to her native Germany, while Krause and Matthews graduated in June.

Working with that trio helped Tenke, who is posting a solid season this year in her own right.

“I think Bobbi Jo wins her events most of the time,” Lauzonis said. “She’s been our most consistent swimmer all season long.”

The team also welcomes back sectional qualifiers in freshman Chelsea O’Laughlin and senior Kim Shields. O’Laughlin competes in the 200-meter intermediate medley, the 100m butterfly and the 200m freestyle. Shields, the team’s other captain, races in the 50, 100 and 200.

“We’ve only got a couple of seniors,” Lauzonis said. “The rest are working hard to get experience and improve, and the times are getting better and better.”

The only other member of the team who returns with any sectional experience is junior April Vandenbosch, who went to the sectional meet last year in diving. Lauzonis thinks Vandenbosch has a good chance to make it back to sectionals, and she might be joined by Lancer teammate and fellow junior diver Carly Nixon.

Lauzonis is hoping to send eight or nine swimmers to sectionals this year. Likely candidates include senior Katie Gaffney in the 500, sophomore Olivia Michaels in the 100 breaststroke, eighth grader Audrey Krause in the 100 backstroke and seventh grader Morgan Swift in the freestyle events.

“I’d love to see some of our younger girls make it to sectionals,” Lauzonis said. “The experience would be invaluable, and that’s the building block for moving beyond that to the state meet.”

The girls will get to test their mettle first at the Niagara Frontier League Championship on Oct. 26 to 28 at Lockport High School. The Section VI Championship in Nov. 9 to 11 at a site to be determined.