ATLANTIC CITY – The Vineland High School
boys swim team competed at the Cape-Atlantic League Individual Swimming
Championships at Atlantic CityHigh School Thursday
night, and posted one of the best all-around team performances in in school
history.
The Fighting Clan, which went 7-4 in regular-season duel meets this year and is awaiting the release of the NJSIAA Public A South playoff brackets to see if they qualified for the eight-team field, posted Meet of Champions qualifying times in a staggering eight of the 11 races they entered. Seniors Bryan Masilotti (50 and 100 freestyle) and Jerry Capriotti (50 and 100 freestyle), and junior Troy Cervini (200 and 50 freestyle) each qualified in two individual events for the first time. Vineland's seven medal-winning swims was second only to reigning Non-Public A state champion St. Augustine, who dominated the field with 13. The two schools' 20 total top-three finishes were more than the rest of the teams combined.
In the first event, the 200-meter medley relay team of Elliot Ortiz (32.75), Michael Smart (33.63), Kyle Bennett (32.02) and John Cooper (27.02) shaved nearly five seconds off their seed time to win their heat going away and finish seventh overall in 2:05.41.
An event later in the 200-meter freestyle, Cervini turned in the Fighting Clan's most shocking and impressive performance of the meet, closing the last two lengths of the race in 30.64 to overtake Atlantic City's Tyler Rau and the Prep's Pat Flynn and finish second in 2:00.62. It was nearly six seconds faster than his previous best and his first individual state cut. St. Augustine senior Steve Melchiorre won the race in 1:59.02, while Vineland freshman Michael Ruberti turned in a personal best of his own (2:04.35) to finish fifth.
Vineland got three more huge swims in the 50-meter freestyle as Capriotti, Masilotti and Ortiz all cut time as well. Capriotti led for most of the race but couldn't quite hold off St. Augustine's Paul Gallagher (24.38) over the final five meters, but took second in 24.51, while Masilotti charged late for third in 24.53. Ortiz cracked the 26-second barrier for the first time, clocking a 25.71, which was good enough for 10th.
Masilotti and Capriotti nearly duplicated their performance in the 100-meter freestyle, taking second and fourth respectively. Masilotti went 54.40 from Lane 8 to edge the Prep's Jeff Flynn (54.51) while Capriotti swam a personal best 54.71 to win the second heat and take fourth overall. Gallagher won the race in a meet record 53.19. Ruberti then kept the time drops rolling in the 400-meter freestyle, making up several body lengths on Atlantic City's Rau in the final 100 to take the bronze medal in 4:25.31, narrowly missing his first career state cut.
The next event was a highly anticipated rematch with St. Augustine in the 200-meter free relay, in which Vineland edged the Hermits, 1:38.84 to 1:38.90, at last year's conference championships. The Prep was not to be denied this time, winning in a meet record 1:37.56, but Cervini (24.97), Masilotti (24.48), Ruberti (25.65) and Capriotti (23.94) finished in 1:39.04.
The meet concluded with Vineland and St. Augustine again duking it out and launching successful assaults on the standing meet record (3:39.72, set by St. Augustine in 2006), but it was again the Hermits who came out on top in 3:37.41. Despite not taking the title, Cervini (56.05), Capriotti (53.57), Ruberti (55.87) and Masilotti (53.95) finished in 3:39.44, smashing Vineland's 10-year-old school record in the process. The old record was set by Brazilian exchange student Eduardo Paiva, Bobby Daplyn, Mike Shostak and Scott Cowperthwait at the conference meet in 2000.
