Dover swim teams sweep OVAC meet in West Virginia
For the third straight year the Dover High School boys and girls swim teams swept the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference meet in Wellsburg, W.V, Saturday.
The boys were dominant, winning five gold medals to place first. No other team won more than two.
Coach Matt Petricola says the Lady Tornadoes won a closer competition by overcoming some illnesses and using a balanced effort.
“Those girls really stepped up and rose to the occasion, and we were able to squeak that one out,” he said. “On the boys side, they were able to just tear it up throughout the day.”
Dovers’ teams swept the OVAC meet in person in 2020, won it virtually in 2021, and topped a 20-team field this year.
“It’s definitely not an easy meet to go into,” Petricola said. “There are a lot of great teams and great athletes from all around Ohio and West Virginia. Our kids know the stakes going into that, so it was encouraging for me as a coach to see them poised, to see them confident and to see them ready to race.”
Lucas Lane led the boys. He won four gold medals – two solo events and two relays.
“Lucas was the only athlete there who had four golds,” Petricola said. “So definitely he was our swimmer of the meet, breaking two meet records, one of which was previously his, so that’s pretty cool.”
Cam Marshall won the boys’ other individual gold medal.
On the girls’ side, Holly Perkowski, Elizabeth Lane, and two relay teams won silver.
Petricola says Naiya Howell provided some needed inspiration.
“She was actually seeded 30th going into the meet in the 200 freestyle and ended up in 14th scoring five points and really got the girls fired up and excited,” he said. “That was the light that we needed just to start building some momentum right away.”
Marshall, Richard Tolloti and Reagan Durbin won individual bronze medals.
Quakers finish in top seven on both sides
The New Philadelphia Quakers also competed, placing sixth out of 20 teams on the boys’ side and seventh out of 20 on the girls’ side. The Quakers got a bronze medal from Brenton Billman.
The complete results of the meet can be found here: https://www.swimcloud.com/results/219023/
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