Greenwich won the team title at all three postseason championships meets yet again, New Canaan won the Class L state championship for the fourth consecutive season, and so many FCIAC athletes combined for victories and high placings at the championship meets to highlight another successful boys’ swimming and diving season.
Seniors Kegan Clark and Felix Flakstad and junior Luke Mendelsohn were three of the fastest swimmers in the state and three big reasons why Greenwich won its 56th FCIAC championship and then both state championship meets to achieve that specific kind of Triple Crown season for the 10th consecutive season.
After Greenwich won its FCIAC championship on Feb. 29, coach Terry Lowe’s Cardinals won the 2024 Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class LL Swimming and Diving Championships on March 12 at Wesleyan, and four days later they won CIAC State Open at Yale University’s Kiphuth Pool.
Greenwich won its 38th overall State Open with 454 points and Pomperaug placed second with 407.5. The Norwalk/McMahon cooperative program (390) and New Canaan (370.5) placed third and fourth, respectively. Four of the top six teams were from the FCIAC as Ridgefield placed sixth with 323 points.
Greenwich racked up 852 points to win the CIAC Class LL team title. Norwalk/McMahon was runner-up with 641 points and the Fairfield Co-op team placed fifth with 343.
New Canaan’s Rams won their Class L team title 760 points, 112 more than runner-up Fairfield Prep (648). Ridgefield (552) placed third and Darien (293) was seventh.
New Canaan junior Jack Haley was a distance freestyler supreme while winning the two longest races at the State Open and Deacon Mascarinas, his senior teammate, also excelled in all three championship meets.
Wyatt Vitiello of the Norwalk/McMahon cooperative team burst onto the scene in a big way as a superb sophomore. Vitiello and Haley each won two individual races at the State Open.
New Canaan’s Haley won the 200-yard freestyle race at the State Open with a time of 1:38.9 which was 1.4 seconds faster than Clark’s runner-up time of 1:40.3. Haley later came back and won the 500 free (4:31.42) by 1.04 seconds over Enfield’s Cody Onsberry (4:32.46).
Vitiello won the 200 individual medley (1:51.41) by 1.26 seconds and then he won the 100 backstroke (50.83) by 0.29 of a second at the State Open.
Finn Moynahan, the fantastic senior diver for the Fairfield cooperative team, won by wide margins over the rest of the field when won his championships at the State Open and CIAC Class LL meets. Moynahan scored 567.75 points to win this year’s State Open by the wide margin of 61.6 points. He had vast improvements from his winning State Open score of 546.6 last year and this year’s Class LL championship score of 543.85.
Seven of the nine individual events at the State Open were won by FCIAC athletes. Haley and Vitiello each collected their two goal medals, Moynahan repeated as the diving champion, while Clark and Mascarinas both won one race and had a runner-up finish.
Mascarinas won the 100 breaststroke (56.56), placed second in the 100 freestyle (46.05), and joined Haley on New Canaan’s winning 200 medley relay team (1:33.79) at the State Open.
Clark won the State Open 100 freestyle in 45.6 after he was runner-up to Haley in the 200 free. Toward the end of the meet Clark jumped back into the pool twice to swim the anchor legs on Greenwich’s winning 200 free (1:25.01) and 400 free (3:07.44) relay teams.
Flakstad and Mendelsohn both placed high in individual events and were members of Greenwich’s winning relay teams at both state championship meets.
Flakstad was runner-up in both the 200 IM (1:52.51) and 500 freestyle at the Class LL championships and at the State Open he placed second in the 200 IM and fourth in the 500 free (4:36.25).
Mendelsohn won the 100 breaststroke (57.12) and placed third in the 200 individual medley (1:53.02) at the Class LL championships and then he was second in the 100 breaststroke and fourth in the 200 IM at the State Open.
Ridgefield senior Jack Clancy also had a tremendous year. Clancy was the Class L state champion in both the 200 freestyle (1:39.5) and 500 free (4:32.86) after he swept both of those events at the FCIAC meet and he’d later place third in them at the State Open.
Clark was selected the Player of the Year as the FCIAC had eight of the 12 athletes selected to the 2023-24 GameTimeCT All-State Boys Swimming First Team. Clark, Flakstad, and Mendelsohn of Greenwich; Haley and Mascarinas of New Canaan; Clancy of Ridgefield; Moynahan of Fairfield Co-op; and Vitiello of Norwalk/McMahon were those eight all-state first-teamers from the FCIAC.
New Canaan senior Nate Codd and Norwalk/McMahon senior Mike Kvashchuk made the GameTimeCT All-State Second Team while the four conference athletes who earned Honorable Mention were Wilton senior diver Griffin Casey, New Canaan junior Eric Huang, Westhill/Stamford senior Hudson Jang, and Ridgefield senior Shaun Li.
NOTES: Greenwich won the first FCIAC championship in 1963 and has won 56 of the 63 total FCIAC championships since then. Greenwich had a winning streak of 36 consecutive conference championships from 1971-2006 until New Canaan won the 2007 championship to end that streak. The Cardinals captured their 18th straight FCIAC title this past winter so that calculates to them having won 44 of the last 45 conference championships since ’71.
There were no new state records set this year in any of the nine individual events. There are five former FCIAC swimmers who still hold state records in six of the nine events. Kieran Smith of Ridgefield established the current records in the two longest freestyle races in 2018 before he went on to win the bronze medal in the 400-meter freestyle at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. The Connecticut high school state records in the nine individual events are listed below:
State Records in Individual Events
200-yard freestyle – 1:34.80, Kieran Smith, Ridgefield, 2018
200 individual medley – 1:47.22, Thomas Dillinger, Greenwich, 2015
50 freestyle – 20.18, Edward Moss, Greenwich, 2015
1-meter diving – 636.25 points, Tianyi Zeng, Daniel Hand, 2017
100 butterfly – 48.14, Corey Gambardella, Branford/Guilford, 2017
100 freestyle – 44.16, Alex Lewis, Greenwich, 2014
500 freestyle – 4:18.83, Kieran Smith, Ridgefield, 2018
100 backstroke – 48.44, John Montesi, Greenwich, 2016
100 breaststroke – 54.25, Oliver Rus, Fairfield Prep, 2018