Connellsville swimmers hope to fulfill potential

In her first year as coach of the Connellsville swim team, Ashley Yelinek guided the Falcons to a winning season and helped the Lady Falcons pick up a few victories while showing some improvement throughout the 2007-08 season.

This year, Yelinek is hoping for an even better campaign in 2008-09.

"I feel more comfortable with the team this season," Yelinek said. "I know the swimmers better and I know what they are capable of doing, and it's always exciting to begin a new season."

The boys team has a strong nucleus of swimmers, led by Alan Nedley. The senior competed in the WPIAL meet in the 500 freestyle and 100 butterfly last season and went to states in the 100 butterfly.

"Alan has had a huge impact on our team, not only swimming, but personality-wise," Yelinek said. "He cheers for everybody and he's always interested in how everyone else is doing."

In addition to Nedley, the Falcons have strong senior swimmers such as Kyle Coughenour and Eric Juengel. Juengel can swim the freestyles and butterfly, and Coughenour is primarily a sprint freestyle swimmer.

With a strong senior group and plenty of underclassmen, the Falcons are hopeful they can build on last's year's 7-6 record.

"I think our goal is to improve on last year, and we'd like to have a few more swimmers qualify for the WPIALs," Yelinek said.

For the Lady Falcons, improvement will also be the goal as they attempt to build on their 3-10 season in 2007-08.

"We have a lot of new girls this year," Yelinek said. "We have 10 or 15 girls that haven't been in the pool before, but hopefully we can get a few more wins and have some girls qualify for the WPIALs."

Heading into the season, the 400 freestyle relay team appears to have the best shot at making it to WPIALs.

The quartet will feature seniors Paige Herbert and Courtney Mastowski, sophomore Sarah Abramowitz and freshman Kendra Wagner.

Those four swimmers will be used in a number of individual events as well. Herbert will swim freestyle events, and Mastowski will compete in freestyles and the backstroke. Abramowitz will be used in distance freestyle events, and Wagner will likely swim in a number of different events. Sophomore Samantha Fabian is developing into a strong freestyle and butterfly swimmer.

Connellsville will compete in Section 1-AAA with Hempfield, Latrobe, Laurel Highlands, Norwin and Penn-Trafford.

Yelinek will be assisted by Julie Michaels. Connellsville will begin the season with a tri-meet against Uniontown and Laurel Highlands at Uniontown on Dec. 5.

"There's a lot of potential on this team, and we'll see what happens," Yelinek said.