NEW HAVEN, March 20 – Five Avon High swimmers will be competing in Saturday’s State Open swimming championships at historic Kiputh Pool at Yale University.
Sophomore Riley Strassner, senior Bill Holoman and freshman Kyle Emery qualified as individuals by finishing among the top 24 times from the four CIAC state championship meets earlier this week. Avon’s 200 yard relay team (Emery, Holoman, Matt Begley, Devon Chambers) also qualified, just getting in as the No. 24 seeded squad.
Competition begins at 2:30 p.m. at Yale.
Strassner, who became the first Avon High swimmer to win a state title with a victory in the 200-yard freestyle at Wednesday’s Class M championships, is the No. 2 seed at the State Open with his winning time of 1:42.94.
The top seed in the 200 free is senior Nicholas Wargo of Fairfield Prep with a 1:41.85 and the third seed is Brookfield senior Daniel Krentsa, who was a close second to Strassner at the Class M meet. Wargo, the Class LL champion, was fourth at the Open in the 200 free a year ago.
The best performance by an Avon athlete at the State Open was a fifth place finish from Zach Cesaro in 2012 in the 200 freestyle. Strassner was here at the Open a year ago and he took 12th in the 200 free and 16th in the 100 free.
Strassner will also swim in the 100 freestyle where he is the No. 14 seed with his time of 47.90, which was good enough for third in Class M and another school record.
Holoman is the 19th seed in the 100 breast stroke with his time of 1:01.58. That school record time was good enough for fifth place in Class M.
Emery is seeded 21st in the 100 backstroke with a time of 55.97 seconds, which earned him fourth place in Class M.
Avon’s 200 medley relay (Emery, Holoman, Begley, Chambers) was fifth in 1:43.35, a shade of its school-record performance of 1:42.95 in the Class M trials.
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