When McAuley sophomore Libby Gajewski won the 100-yard butterfly Friday in a triangular meet at Westbrook, she did something unequaled by any other schoolgirl swimmer in Maine this winter.

Gajewski, by three-hundredths of a second, bumped Greely sophomore Sarah Easterling out of the top spot in the weekly lists of fastest times across the state in Class B.

Easterling sits atop every other individual swimming event: all four freestyle distances (50, 100, 200 and 500) as well as the 100 backstroke, 100 breast stroke and 200 individual medley.

How many weeks in Coach Rob Hale’s 20 years at Greely has he had a swimmer run the times table?

Zilch.

“I have never had a boy or a girl,” said Hale, who acknowledged the unlikely possibility that Easterling will finish the season with the fastest time in every event.

Even so, leading seven and being just shy of the eighth “this late in the season, it’s very impressive,” he said, “because all the top swimmers have had a chance to swim the events.”

Easterling is the defending state champion in the backstroke and individual medley. Hale has plenty of time to decide what two individual events she will swim next month at the state meet, where the Rangers will attempt to pull off a successful title defense for the first time since Falmouth won four in a row through 2007.

“She’ll go in an event I don’t have depth in,” Hale said. “Probably backstroke or breast stroke.”

What if Easterling lacks only one of the eight fastest times? Won’t she want to go against Gajewski in the butterfly?

The thought of Easterling putting personal gain ahead of team goals makes Hale chuckle. She may have two school records (breast, IM), two Greely pool records (breast, 200 free) and few peers, but she certainly puts on no airs.

“She has absolutely no ego,” he said. “She’s a meek little mouse when she comes out on deck, which results in her teammates liking her very much.”

How about a rivalry with junior Sara Schad, who set a pool record of 55.53 seconds in the 100 freestyle last month at Greely, erasing a mark that stood since 1981? Same first name. Similarly fast times. Sounds like they could push each other.

“I don’t do that,” Hale said. “They never swim in an event against each other. I don’t know what would happen and I don’t want to find out.”

Schad, incidentally, swam faster (55.27) in a subsequent meet. Easterling’s time of 54.71 came at the Morse Invitational at the end of December, when the two of them teamed with junior Katie Whittum and senior Megan Stroud to set a Bath YMCA pool record of 3:44.00 in the 400 free relay. At the same meet, Easterling set a pool record with her IM time of 2:12.20, which was more than two seconds under her Class B state title time last February.

 

LAST TUESDAY’S meet between the Greely and Scarborough boys turned out to be a one-point affair, with Greely winning, 93-92.

“They were deeper than I thought,” said Hale, who said the difference maker was freshman Calvin Stroud’s fifth-place finish (earning the decisive point) in his 500 free debut.

“I don’t think he believed me at first,” Hale said about asking Stroud to give the event a try.

Afterward, Stroud said he would like to try it again.

 

AT THE SAME meet in which Gajewski swam her 1:02.17 butterfly for McAuley, Deering sophomore Dylan Farber qualified for the state meet in the 100 breast stroke despite losing his goggles at the start of the race. Seniors Laura DeWitt (butterfly) and Erik Thomas (100 free) also qualified.

 

LAURA FLEWELLING and Kip Gravel, both of whom swam for Scarborough High last winter, are swimming exclusively for Coastal Maine Aquatics and plan to continue their careers at the University of Maryland and La Salle.

Flewelling (ninth in breast) and Yarmouth sophomore Evan Coleman (11th in back) have national age-group rankings and competed in a junior national meet last month at Georgia Tech.

 

Staff Writer Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at: gjordan@pressherald.com

 

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