BY MATT STOUT
In most sports, it’d be considered a strange scene, as if some mistake had been made.
There was Steve Van Der Beken, the coach of the Manchester West and Central swim teams, waving his arms frantically, hopping around with his right knee wrapped in an ace bandage and screaming words of encouragement across the pool to a swimmer in the boys 500-yard freestyle race at the NHIAA state swimming and diving championships at Swasey Pool on Saturday, Feb. 10.
The only problem: Nick Catano, the swimmer Van Der Beken was supporting, wasn’t from West or Central.
“I don’t hold anything back with any of the kids,” said Van Der Beken, who’s worked with several swimmers outside of the Manchester high school teams through the Manchester Swim Team, including Goffstown High’s Catano. “I enjoy coaching all of these kids, and I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
In the tight-knit world of New Hampshire high school swimming and diving, Van Der Beken’s actions aren’t out of the ordinary. Unlike other sports, battles lines aren’t drawn by town borders, school colors or even lane dividers, if they’re even drawn at all.
Opposing athletes and coaches cheer for each other, teams practice and mingle with one another and swimmers from adjoining towns frequently team up, often on one of the area’s year-round club teams like Van Der Beken’s MST or the Racquet Club of Concord’s Blue Dolphins.
As a result, it makes for many incidents like Saturday’s, where a swim meet is more often a reunion of old friends than a state-wide competition.
“I’ve been growing up swimming with a lot of people here, so you’re friends with all these people, you’re on teams with them for years and years,” said Concord senior Jennifer Corriveau, who earned state titles in both the 50 free and 100 free on Saturday. “You stand behind the blocks and talk with people that you never met in your life, and you end up seeing them at meets down the road and it’s like, ‘Oh hey, what’s going on?’”
Corriveau and her Concord teammates know that type of camaraderie well. Like many teams, including all three Manchester city squads, Concord shares practices and pool space with both Bow and Hopkinton.
The teams’ swimmers have long competed with each other for the Blue Dolphins. The coaches even join forces. Concord High coach Karen Jenovese serves as Blue Dolphin coach, and Bow and Hopkinton coach Joanna Jackson serves as team administrator.
Hopkinton senior Susie Jackson, who finished sixth in the 50 free and eighth in the 100 free, has shared lanes since she was 11 with Corriveau, whom she coincidently raced side-by-side with during preliminaries.
The Hawks’ lone individual swimmer also appreciates the strong ties the state’s swimmers have formed.
Jackson participates in another highly individual sport – track and field. Yet it can’t rival swimming in terms of bonding, she said.
“We don’t live on the track field like we do in the pool,” said Jackson, the coach’s daughter. “I’m always here, and I always see the same kids. And this is year-round, so you see everyone a lot more often. We’ve been doing it for 10 years.”
The teams’ coaches and athletes also described an emotional night back in January when, in a meet with Laconia and Gilford, they hosted Senior Night for all three of the teams’ seniors.
“About 10 of them started out at the Concord YMCA when they were 8 years old, and now they’re all seniors and graduating,” said Joanne Jackson. “We pulled out all the pictures of them when they were younger. Now they’re all at separate high schools, and they want to beat each other in the water. But afterward, they all went to Friendly’s. It’s a great tight-knit group of kids.”
Local results
Led by Corriveau, the Concord girls placed eighth as a squad to pace the locals, followed by the Bow girls, who tied for 16th and the Hopkinton girls, who placed 22nd. The Bow boys team took 10th, while the Concord boys finished 32nd.
Corriveau, the defending New England champ in the 50 free, successfully defended her state title in the event with a time of 25.07 seconds, while earning first in the 100 free at 55.25.
Gracie Ferguson also took 10th in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1-minute, 7.25 seconds, while the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Erin Fleurant, Ferguson, Jennifer Jarnot and Corriveau took third at 1:46.90. The 200-yard medley team of Ferguson, Fleurant, Jarnot and Corriveau placed sixth, and the 400-yard freestyle team of Courtney Ellis, Rachel Clymer, Jessica Chaney and Emily Thompson placed 14th.
The Bow girls team was led by Kerry McCann, who took third in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:03.59 and sixth in the 200 free at 2:05.60.
Jackson, who battled a rotator cuff injury all year, earned the first finals appearance of her high school career in the 50 free and finished in 26.34. She finished the 100 free in 58.21.
For the Bow boys, Dan Howard took third in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 58.97 and fifth in the 100-yard butterfly at 57.84. The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Richard Jenkins, Sean McCann, Nick Normandin and Howard also earned points with a seventh-place finish, while the 200-yard medley team of Howard, Parker Moore, Normandin and Jenkins placed ninth.
The Concord boys team enjoyed a strong performance from its 400-yard freestyle relay team of Joel St. John, Tony Parenti, Greg Dillon and James Riley, which took 12th.