Red Devils Finish Fifth, Return With A New Skyland Champ In the 500 Free

The Red Devils performed well at the Skyland Conference Championships on Friday night.  They broke two team records and came in fifth with 136 points.  Bradley Wachenfeld provided a highlight for the night in the 500 free by becoming a conference champion with his first individual conference win – breaking a Ridge team record.  According to Coach Dupuis "Overall, it was a great meet with a lot of fast swimming.  We were really proud of both the individual achievements as well as the overall team effort."

The Devils started the meet off strong in the 200 medley relay, coming in fourth with 22 points.  Their final time of 1:42.39 was only ten hundredths of a second behind their seed time and only 30 hundredths of a seconds away from third.  Scoring ahead of them were The Pingry School in first, Hillsborough High School in second, and Bridgewater-Raritan High School in third.

Bradley Wachenfeld foreshadowed his record-breaking performance later on in the night with a powerful showing that secured him fifth in the 200 freestyle.  Fellow Ridge swimmer Joey Patchett put up a good effort, coming in 10th and adding three points to Wachenfeld's 10, which brought the score for Ridge to 35 at the end of the second event.

The third event was the 200 Individual Medley.  Stephen Raynes swam hard and fast to secure second place and the accompanying 13 points.  Eric Chung and Kenny Savage placed fifth and sixth to bring Ridge to 67 points going into the fourth event.

Unfortunately, Ridge was unable to build on their score in the next three events.  Bradley Wachenfeld ended this cold streak in the 500 yard freestyle with a definitive first place finish that brought the team total to 83 points.  His time of 4:50.90 was over a second ahead of Montgomery High School's Mike Leddy and a new Ridge team record.  Wachenfeld's spectacular performance secured him his first individual conference win and the title of Skyland Conference Champion.

In the 200 freestyle relay, Ridge was able to improve their score to 93 by securing an eighth place finish.  They built on this lead in the next event, the 100 backstroke.  Ridge swimmers Stephen Raynes and Kenny Savage brought the Devil's score to 114 with their respective fourth and fifth place finishes.  Both swimmers improved on their seed times amid tight competition from third place finisher Victor Luo and sixth place finisher Matthew VanBiervliet, who all completed the race in the 55th second.

The Devils were unable to place in the 100 breaststroke, yet they made up for this in the final event of the night.  Ridge returned in the 400 freestyle relay with a strong performance that brought  them fourth place and the second broken team record of the night.  They ended the night with a 136 points, just five points shy of defeating their rivals Bernards High School. 

Coach Dupuis summed up the meet, saying "We were able to beat out Hunterdon Central and Hillsborough, two really great teams, which we were really proud of.  Although we were disappointed to lose out to our rival Bernards, our kids gave it their best and we came much closer to beating them than we did at County Champs, so we were really pleased."

The Red Devils swim next at Bernards High School on Tuesday the Feb. 9.