Members of Newtown High School’s girls’ swim team participated in the Class LL state championship qualifying meet in East Hartford on November 8. Several of the team members not only earned their seedings for the November 15 championships (set for 7 pm at Wesleyan University in Middletown), but set records in the process.

Amy Martinelli, Mandy Mele, Mary Hufziger, Eliza Eggleston, and Megan McDonald all recorded standout performances as they kicked off the state championship season. This NHS quintet set school records in four events and, as a matter of fact, one record was rebroken moments after a new standard was set.

Martinelli established a record in the 50 yard freestyle event by swimming a 24.87. In the next heat, Mele bumped her teammate down a rung by making her final touch a split second faster, in 24.86. Talk about close.

Not to be outdone, Martinelli did to herself what Mele had accomplished as Martinelli broke her own record in the 100 freestyle race by recording a time of 54.25. They are the third and fourth seeds heading into the finals.

Both Martinelli and Mele, along with Hufziger and Eggleston, combined to set a new record in the 200 free relay race. The relay contingent already held the record but bettered their time, setting the new standard at 1:40.26. They had set a team and South-West Conference championship meet record with a time of 1:40.30 on November 1. The relay team earned the LL championship meet’s top seed.

McDonald broke Newtown High’s 100 backstroke team record, finishing in a time of 1:00.78 and goes into the finals as the sixth seed.

“Setting five team records in the span of three hours is an unbelievable accomplishment for the girls. The team has worked hard all season to put themselves in this position,” said Newtown Coach Zach Gauvin, noting that the team members have stepped up big against some of the toughest competition in the state.

“It’s going to be a tough task to top the performance from this past meet, but I can’t wait to see what the girls have left in the tank for our upcoming state final and state open championship meets,” said Gauvin, whose top team members will swim against the best of the best from each of the state’s four class sizes in the November 15 State Open at Yale University in New Haven.