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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, March 17, 2016 | 46 HALTON TRANSMISSION 559 SPEERS RD., #UNIT 3 905-842-0725 www.haltontransmission.com Kevin Nagel Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com Two golds highlight four-medal Aquinas swim haul at OFSAA By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff Sports "Connected to your Community" Panos Papangelakis had already been denied a medal twice at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations swim meet. He wasn't about to let it happen again. The St. Thomas Aquinas swimmer had turned in fourth-place finishes in both the open boys' 100-metre and 200m freestyle. Now in the meet's final event -- the open boys' 4x100m freestyle relay -- he had another chance to bring one home, swimming the anchor leg. Omar Lozano, who had already won a gold medal in the butterfly and a silver in the backstroke, turned the relay over to the Papangelakis brothers with Aquinas in sixth place. By the time George Papangelakis completed his 100m in 54.09 seconds, he had moved the Raiders into second place, a little more than a second behind Ancaster. "He was relentless in his pursuit," said Aquinas coach Brendan Boyle. "At the first turn he was kicks behind. At the next one he was one kick. At the last turn, I knew he had him." With a final leg of 52.18 seconds, the Raiders' anchor swimmer had not only made up the ground on Ancaster, he finished a second ahead to clinch the gold medal for the Raiders. "Our lead swimmer (Matthew Harris) is a high-school trained swimmer," said Boyle. "He did what he needed to and kept us in contention and then the others just picked off one or two swimmers each leg." The relay gold was one of four medals won by Aquinas swimmers. Lozano, a double bronze medallist at OFSAA last year, added two more individual medals this year. Lozano won the senior boys' 50m butterfly in a time of 26.94 to win by one-tenth of a second. The following day, Lozano added a silver medal in the 100m backstroke, finishing in 1:01.96 after getting out-touched at the wall. "I've always known him more as an exceptional backstroker, but he had a really exceptional run in the butterfly," Boyle said. "He's a high-school trained swimmer and an IB (International Baccalaureate) student, so he's a pretty solid student, too." Jessica Clark delivered a breakthrough performance to earn a bronze medal in the senior girls' 100m individual medley. After finishing fourth at the Golden Horseshoe Athletic Conference meet, Clark dropped 3 1/2 seconds off her time in the preliminaries and then cut almost another two full seconds in the final, taking third place in 1:13.77. "It was a great swim for her," Boyle said of the Grade 12 student, who also made the 50m freestyle final and finished seventh. A year after winning bronze medals in both the senior boys' medley relay and freestyle relays, Oakville Trafalgar upgraded to silver in both events. Andrew Nguyen, Scott Love, Albert Nguyen and Mark Montague turned in a season-best time of 2:00.25 to hold off a charging St. Andrew's College for the silver in the medley relay. "Everybody was focused," said OT coach Kathy Stearns-Brown. "They knew what they were there to do." St. Thomas Aquinas open freestyle relay team included (from left) Omar Lozano, Panos Papangelakis, George Papangelakis and, being lifted, Matthew Harris. They won the gold medal at the OFSAA swim championships in Windsor.| photo submitted In the freestyle relay, Roberto Lasso replaced Albert Nguyen and OT again delivered a season-best time of 1:45.81. "Roberto has never swam club before. He's just such an athlete," Stearns-Brown said. "He's gone to OFSAA in cross-country and he's hoping to go in track. He said, `Thanks for having faith in me.' I never saw a kid smile so much. He had a grin from ear to ear when he got his medal." In order to swim on both relays at OFSAA, Love had to choose between the two individual events in which he had qualified. He won the senior boys' 50m freestyle at at GHAC, but instead opted to race the 100m backstroke, in which he finished second. Fourth at the midway point in the 100m backstroke at OFSAA, Love moved up to third to claim the bronze medal in 1:03.08. "He made the right call," said Stearns-Brown. Sebastien Krewdel earned a silver medal in the junior boys' 50m backstroke. After finishing fourth in the junior boys' 100m freestyle on the opening day, the Iroquois Ridge student came back to claim silver on Day 2 in the 50m backstroke. He finished in 30.57 seconds and was the only Grade 9 swimmer to make either the A or B final. "I went as hard as I could and I'm really proud of what I did," he said. "The final was all Grade 10s so I'll probably have a good chance at gold next year." Also earning a silver medal was Lena von Buren of White Oaks in an extremely close finish in the senior girls' 50m freestyle. Only five onehundredths of a second separated von Buren in second from M.M. Robinson's Eryn Loney in fourth. Von Buren touched the wall in 28.34 seconds to narrowly edge the bronze medallist from Georgetown who finished in 28.36. Von Buren turned in her fourthplace finish the next day in the 100m freestyle and also helped the White open girls' 4x100m freestyle relay team, including Ashley Ordinario, Jeannie Lam and Alyna Liu, finish fifth. Other finalists from the OFSAA meet included: Caroline Hickman (Appleby College), fourth, open girls' 50m freestyle; fifth, 200m freestyle; Leah Creelman (Holy Trinity), fourth, junior girls' 50m butterfly; Ryan Works (White Oaks), fifth, para boys' 50m backstroke; seventh, 100m freestyle; Paige Lavergne (Iroquois Ridge), fifth, open girls' 200m IM; Justin Kirkham (White Oaks), fifth, senior boys' 100m freestyle. Aaron Liu (Appleby College), sixth, junior boys' 100m freestyle; Leon Yang (Appleby College), sixth, senior girls' 100m breaststroke; Maddy Harrison (Appleby College, seventh, senior girls' 100m backstroke; Gabrielle Harris (Aquinas), seventh, open girls' 100m butterfly; Michael Marchetti (White Oaks), seventh, para boys' 50m backstroke; Emily Cudny (Appleby College), eighth, open girls' 200 IM. EasterCelebration FOLLOW US Enter Monastery Bakery's and you could WIN a 5kg Hand-painted Chocolate Easter Egg! 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