Ciaran Dillon-Davidson of Amherst Regional wins first sectional swim title
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SPRINGFIELD - Amherst Regional sophomore Ciaran Dillon-Davidson won his first Western Massachusetts Swimming Championship on Sunday at the Art Linkletter Natatorium at Springfield College.
Dillon-Davidson overwhelmed his competition in the 500-yard freestyle, pulling away from the pack while building a sizable lead.
He went on to win by approximately 10 yards with a time of 4 minutes, 54.30 seconds, which beat the next closest contender by nearly nine seconds and marked the first time the sophomore has broken the five-minute mark in high school.
"It felt great. It was my goal to at least go what I was seeded," Dillon-Davidson said. "The 500 I was especially excited about because that was the first time that I've won an individual event at western Mass."
Dillon-Davidson was the No. 1 seed in the 500 and the No. 2 seed in the 100 butterfly, in which he finished second with a time of 54.25.
He fell just short of an upset, finishing .21 seconds behind Palmer junior Aaron Szcepanek.
"I think I'm going to swim that (the 100 fly) again at states, and so hopefully I can do better than today," Dillon-Davidson said.
As a team, Amherst finished right behind Northampton in fifth place (172 points). Minnechaug won with 399 points followed by Westfield (278.5) Longmeadow (263).
"We want to establish a level of consistency," Hurricanes coach Keith McFarland said. "They finished in the top five each of the last four years (at the sectional tournament), and they've been able to maintain that, and they're a young team.
"Most of the relays are made up of freshman and sophomores, so it bodes really well for the next couple of years," he added.
Amherst senior Walter Benson finished fourth (2:12.75) in the 200 individual relay and 13th in the 500 (5:26.40). The championship scored the top 16 finishers.
Amherst freshman Marc Klepacki finished fifth (23.12) in the 50 free, edged out by Northampton's Joe Bierwert (23.06).
In the 200 medley relay, Amherst (Klepacki, Dylan Bannon, Dillon-Davidson, Dominik Doemer) placed sixth in 1:50.38.
In the 400 freestyle relay, Northampton was third in 3:28.63, edging out Amherst (Klepacki, Eric Chen, Benson, Dillon-Davidson) which finished fourth in 3:29.69.
Eric Chen was 12th in the 50 free (24.44) and 11th in the 100 free (53.34), while Klepacki finished eighth in the 100 back (59.78).
Girls meet
Amherst placed ninth out of 10 teams in the girls championship with 101 points. Westfield won with 316 followed by Minnechaug (270) and East Longmeadow (270).
Sophia Dillon-Davidson took eighth in the 100 breastroke in 1:13.38. She was also joined Laura Nunnelly, Suyin Taunton and Corey Gerber-Dolan to finish eighth (2:02.11) in the 200 medley relay.
Emma Thibault was 12th in the 200 free in 2:06.54, while Gerber-Dolan was 15th in the 50 free (27.08).
Amherst had three finishers in the 500 free. Joslyn Sullivan was ninth in 5:34.19, Thibault was 12th in 5:42.53 and Dillon-Davidson was 14th in 5:49.40.
Sullivan was also ninth in the 100 backstroke in 1:04.91, while Dillion-Davidson was eighth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:13.38.
The Hurricanes also placed in the 200 free relay (ninth, 1:48.64) and the 400 free relay (10th, 3:59.98).
