By By BRIAN HAINES, Brian@wdnweb.com, Sports Writer
The Pam Pack swim team’s impressive season continued on Wednesday as Washington traveled to New Bern for the Coastal Conference meet and came back to town with one conference championship in one hand and a runner-up trophy in the other.
The young, and ultra-talented, Washington girls team put forth a dominating effort at New Bern as it took first place in seven of the 10 events to rack up 157 points and wrap up a Coastal Conference championship.
South Central tallied 127 points to place second and was trailed by Havelock (94), D.H. Conley (56), West Carteret (43), White Oak (42) and Jacksonville (1).
The Pam Pack boys, which one the conference meet last season, took second as they scored 120 points to finish behind a strong West Carteret team that accumulated 157 points. Taking third place was D.H. Conley (100), who was followed by Havelock (63), South Central (41.5), White Oak (18) and Jacksonville (13.5).
“It was a real emotional meet for my seniors. Everybody came out to swim and everybody performed well,” Washington swim coach Spencer Pake said. “We had a lot of kids drop times and it was a really good victory for us.”
The girls outstanding effort led to Washington Pake being named the Coastal Conference Girls Coach of the Year for the second year in a row.
“It was a honor. You get voted on by your fellow coaches and it’s my seventh year being a coach and this is the fifth year that I have received either the girls team or boys team coach of the year,” Pake said. “It feels good that your peers notice what you are doing each year.”
Washington was able to win the girls meet thanks to a great performance by what Pake dubbed his “Fab Five” which consists of junior Riziki Omonde, sophomores Emily Pfeiffer and Kaitlyn Richards, along with freshmen Jessica Penhollow and Chandler Beach. On Wednesday, at least one member of the Fab Five had a hand in each of the girls’ seven first-place finishes.
The girls got off to a hot start as they won the first event, the 200-meter medley relay, as Beach, Pfeiffer, Richards and Penhollow raced to a time of 2:01.60.
After that, Penhollow placed second in the 200-meter freestyle, which was followed by a first-place finish by Pfeiffer in the 200-meter individual medley, who was trailed by Beach who took second in the same event.
Washington proceeded to take first the 50-meter freestyle (Omonde), 100-meter freestyle (Omonde), 500-meter freestyle (Beach, Richards second place), 200-meter freestyle relay (Michaela Daniels, Ali Amaxopulos, Omonde, Pfeiffer) and the 100-mete breast stroke (Pfeiffer).
Washington’s Penhollow also took third in the 100-meter fly, while Richards placed second in the 100-meter backstroke.
“The (girls) did dominate pretty much the whole meet,” Pake said. “They really focused on what to do. We had a game plan and they went out and performed. … They are a talented team. They are focused, they know what they have to do and they have the talent to do it.”
Pake said that while the effort of the Fab Five was huge, there were some performances that could not be overlooked on both the boys and girls side.
“The girls 200 free relay, I didn’t know what to expect but they went and took the gold medal. I wanted to try and get the gold in all three relays and Michaela Daniels and Ali Amaxopulos stepped up big and had big swims. They can get overshadowed some times but they had great swims,” Pake said. “For the boys, the 400 freestyle relay team (Charles Pfeiffer, Luke Harris, Robert Sandy, Brandon Niederhauser; second place, 3:33.49) went out and broke the Washington High School record by almost three seconds, it was very impressive. The 200 free relay (Coleman Smithwick, Harris, Sandy, Niederhauser; 1:37.96) was seeded second but came out and took first place. They all swam really well, dropped time and beat D.H. Conley who was seeded first.”
The boys took two other first-place finishes with Niederhauser winning both as he was tops in the 50-meter freestyle and the 100-meter freestyle.
Harris placed third in the 200-meter freestyle, while Pfeiffer took third 200-meter individual medley. Pfeiffer also nabbed silver in the 500-meter freestyle.
York Winstead and Sandy finished fifth and sixth respectively in the 100-meter fly, while Winstead also placed fifth in the 100-meter back stroke. Daniel Crozier took sixth in the 100-meter breast stroke.
“Brandon Niederhauser, Charles Pfeiffer and York Winstead are my seniors on the boys team and they all came and performed well today and did everything I asked of them. They all put forth a great effort we just fell a little short of West Carteret,” Pake said.
The Pack’s effort in the conference meet as allowed 17 of the 26 Washington swimmers to advance to the regional meet, which will be held on Feb. 5 at the Goldsboro YMCA.