Long Beach's Maggie Aroesty steals show, but Garden City wins county
Long Beach's Margaret Aroesty does the breaststroke as her team wins the 200 yard medley relay during the Nassau swimming championships at Nassau County Aquatic Center on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2015. Credit: Howard Schnapp
It didn't take very long for Maggie Aroesty to build insurmountable leads.
The Long Beach junior earned MVP honors at the Nassau girls swimming championship at Nassau Aquatic Center in East Meadow yesterday, scoring the most points of individual swimmers.
She won the 200-yard individual medley in 2 minutes, 1.92 seconds and the 100-yard breaststroke, breaking her own state record, with a time of 1:02.05. The Marine also won the 200-yard medley relay, swimming the breaststroke portion.
Aroesty displayed great form and blinding speed, but she still didn't expect to win.
"It's really an honor," she said. "I'm surprised I won the MVP because [the officials] usually give it to a senior. I'm just really proud of myself."
Aroesty teamed with Kristen Romano, Morgan Harrington and Joan Cash and they set a county record in the 200-yard medley with a time of 1:46.39.
The performance also earned the entire group automatic All-American consideration.
But it was Garden City that separated itself from the pack, finishing first with 500 points. Manhasset finished second (447) behind Madeline Kang, Megan Smith and Garrity Kuester. Long Beach, the Nassau I champions, finished third in the county event with 421.5 points.
"This one is pretty special because we were the second seed going into the year [and] Manhasset was first," said Garden City coach Anne Sullivan. "We had two very close dual meets during the season. We lost to Manhasset by two and in our final meet against Long Beach, we took it down to the last relay."
Garden City had 32 swimmers in the event, 28 of whom swam in the finals of their events. It was this depth that gave Garden City an edge.
Sophomores Rose Kelly and Gabriella Meringolo were often the best swimmers in the pool for Garden City, and both qualified for multiple events at the upcoming state championships in Ithaca.
Kelly won the county title in the 50-yard freestyle (24.32), an event she said she was nervous about.
Such a short-distance event can easily be influenced by one small mistake, so it took a flawless run to win.
"I was really nervous because there were so many great swimmers," Kelly said. "[Sullivan] is such a great coach. She knows where to put me, and it worked out."
When asked about Kelly, Sullivan smiled and said, "My girls seem to rise to the occasion when they come to this pool."
