PREP SWIMMING: Concord sweeps NLC heavyweight battle at Northridge

Jan. 4—MIDDLEBURY — The wins keep coming for Concord swim head coach Tom Johnson, and the sweep of rival Northridge Thursday afternoon at Northridge High School kept the Minutemen atop the conference standings as the regular season draws near.

The girls pulled away on the backs of nine first-place finishes to win 118-67 while the boys only won five events, but countered with depth for a 99-86 win over the Raiders. Both victories moved Concord to 5-0 in the NLC and dropped Northridge to 5-2 on the girls side and 6-1 on the boys.

"Both teams swam really well," Johnson said after the dual. "Our women we felt like had the advantage and swam well enough. We still have a lot of work to do though, Northridge swam pretty good in a lot of events where we thought we might be a little better. The men's side we knew it would be a very competitive meet."

Both sides eyed breaking a Concord that still stands tall after Thursday night. The Minutemen's boys side hasn't lost a conference match since December of 2017. The last loss came against the Raiders who wanted to play spoiler again at home.

Despite the Raiders desire to knock the crown off, Concord came out with win number 45 in the impressive stretch.

"We are," Johnson said about whether his team has found its stride after losing several keys pieces to last year's state run. "We're still a ways to go but our second and third swimmers really stepped up. Swimming dual meets is all about depth and I know they won more events on the boys side."

Northridge won seven events compared to the Minutemen's five on the boys side. But with each Raider finish at the top spot, in came Concord to gather the remaining points.

Impressive finishes for Concord included Zach McDonald. McDonald finished second in the boys 200-yard freestyle (1:51.89) behind Northridge's Evan Haney (1:48.81) but his more eye-catching finish came in the boys 500-yard freestyle. McDonald took the top spot with a time of 5:10.61 and swam similar splits throughout the race to top his teammate Will Delio who finished second (5:12.93).

"How about Zach McDonald who won the 500," Johnson said. "I don't think that was necessarily an expectation, but he's been working hard."

Sawyer Lehman and Jeremiah Bekhterev were names to watch on the Raiders side. Lehman took home wins in the boys 200-yard individual medley (1:58.60), the 100-yard fly (53.66) while helping the home team win the 200-yard medley relay (1:39.24) and the 400-yard freestyle relay (3:21.91). Bekhterev placed first in the 100-yard freestyle (50.64).

Still, a costly DQ in the 200-yard freestyle relay on the boys side cost Northridge in the long run as the second Raiders team would have placed third in the event, instead letting Concord in the door to finish ahead.

"We swam pretty good overall but it came down to our second and third guys and their depth just showed up today," Northridge second-year head coach Seth Cripe said. "We had a costly DQ in the 200 free relay from a junior and you just can't have simple mistakes like that. [We got] beat at walls; they controlled momentum the entire meet."

Cripe was pleased with his girls team though, even in a much greater deficit.

Lily Bekhterev captured wins in the 50-yard freestyle (24.79) and the 100-yard freestyle (55.06) to capture two of the three first place finishes for Northridge on the girls side.

On Concord's end, Brynlee Yoder was the attention grabber. Yoder finished atop the leaderboard in the 200-yard individual medley (2:09.83) and the 100-yard breaststroke (1:08.51). The breaststroke finish was one of the closer finishes of the night with Yoder beating Northridge's Izzy Melvin by less than a second.

"Brynlee had competitive races coming in so I knew she was good to compete in here against Izzy and really came ready to race," Johnson said.

Both schools will finish out play before the girls conference prelims take place one week from Thursday at Northridge.

PREP SWIMMING Boys

Concord (6-1, 5-0 NLC) — 99

Northridge (10-2, 6-1 NLC) — 86

Girls

Concord (6-1, 5-0 NLC) — 118

Northridge (8-4, 5-2 NLC) — 67

Reach Matt Lucas at 574-533-2151, ext. 240325, or at matt.lucas@goshennews.com.