Hersey hangs on against Wheeling

It's getting to be that point of the boys swim season where practices are painfully grueling, every point in a dual meet is hotly contested and winning is more of a relief than a celebration.

Consider Hersey and coach Dick Mortensen quite relieved.

The Huskies escaped with a 95-91 victory over host Wheeling on Friday afternoon, getting just enough out of the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, to improve to 6-2 in dual meets this season.

Hersey held a manageable 91-81 lead heading into the final event, but saw Wheeling's foursome of Kyle Noel, Justin Loquerico, Nate Reiff and Jake Noel win in 3:24.73, while teammates Ricky Reeve, Drew Schwartz, Kyle Levy and Daniel Levy took third in 4:09.29.

The Huskies' David Kuntz, Kristiyan Donov, Jake Hall and Michael Petro took second in 3:31.22, though, which was enough to preserve the meet victory.

"I did expect it to be this close," Mortensen said. "I know (Wheeling's) top-end kids are very good; they were second at conference last year. Never count them out. I was very happy that our depth showed up today."

Mortensen was particularly pleased with the efforts of his 400 free relay, for obvious reasons.

"We knew at that point that all we had to do was get second, and it was all about safe starts but still being aggressive and swim," he said. "Three of those guys - Donov, Hall and Kuntz - they all swam the backstroke, so they were all coming off a pretty quick turnaround. They hung in there."

There's another way to look at the end result for Hersey - and that was from the edge of the diving board. The Huskies gained crucial points by going 1-2-3 in diving, led by Danny Obyrtacz with 180 points, and followed closely by Joey Defillipo (170.05) and Kris Kudla (167.05).

"They meant a lot," Mortensen said. "Two of those are frosh-sophs I moved up, Joey and Kris Kudla. For them to step up and just kind of fill in … that's (diving coach Tom) Schwab's M.O., though. He's always got those guys in the pipeline."

Obyrtacz, a senior, felt the jitters during his first dive, which netted him scores of 4, 4.5 and 4. But by his fourth, a 103 in the pike position, they were long gone and he scored 6, 7.5 and 7.

"I just didn't really know what to expect," Obyrtacz said of that first dive. "I guess I overthought it, but in order to do a dive successfully, you can't really overthink it You've just got to do it."

Schwab - who was previously Wheeling's coach for 34 years - liked what he saw from Obyrtacz.

"Danny is an outstanding athlete and really put together a good performance for us tonight," he said. "We have great expectations that he's going to lead us into conference, sectionals and state."

Hersey also got a strong individual performance from Petro, a freshman, who broke a school record in winning the 200 individual medley in 1:59.19, and then followed that by winning the 100 butterfly in 53.75.

Meanwhile, Wheeling fell to 3-4 in dual meets, but it sure wasn't for a lack of effort. The Wildcats won eight of the 12 events, and were led by junior Kyle Noel, who won the 200 freestyle (1:55.59) and 100 freestyle (50.36), while Reiff did likewise in the 50 free (22.79) and 100 breaststroke (1:03.13). Ricky Reeve jumped out to an early lead in the 500 freestyle and won it in 5:27.49, well ahead of Hersey's Conor Stanley, the runner-up at 5:54.85.

"It was a good, close, tough meet," Schwager said. "Hersey swam really well today. There were a lot of matchups that were pretty good. I know Nate really pulled the 50 out, Kyle has been hitting the sprints really well.

"Between the Noels, Nate and even Justin, they all came in together with me and they really helped turn this team around and move us in the right direction, and be much more of a quality team. The work ethic, they're workhorses in practice, and that's really what drives everything else that's going on."

Twin brothers Kyle and Jake Noel, both juniors, pointed to how hard Schwager has been pushing the team in practice as the reason for their success.

"We've been practicing really hard and it's going to show in meets," said Kyle Noel, who led his 200 freestyle relay team to victory in 1:35.05. "He's working us really hard and we're hoping to repeat what we did last year at conference."

"Considering that we've been practicing as hard as we have, dropping time and staying around our best times is great," added his brother, who won the 100 backstroke in 55.65.