Katonah Swim & Dive Hosts Craziest Event of the Season

Six teams came prepared to do battle today at the Katonah Memorial Pool. Three would win trophies, many would win raffle prizes, some would be heroes, some would create stories that would carry over to next year.

Katonah Swim & Dive hosted the most anticipated event of the season, the Katonah Invitational, and Bedford Village, Bedford Hills, Pleasantville, and Chappaqua answered the challenge.  Timed to take place in the middle of a busy and competitive season, Invitationals are set up to include a larger number of swimmers and divers on each team, and to change things up. What does that mean, you ask?

Well, the meet opened, as always, with diving. The event? Not the traditional 11 & under, but The Most Entertaining Dive!  All ages welcome! And all were prepared! Quiet for diving? Not today! The cheers and laughter for each and every dive regardless of team echoed throughout the hills.

There were struts on the board, sashays on the board, can openers (oops! 0 points for getting the judges wet!), silly flips, you get the idea... But it was KSDT that stole the show and took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd with crazy high-flying twists and turns. There was no doubt that Matt Rohrer earned 1st, scoring 10-10-9 with a full twisty dive that reached such an amazing height the poolside was wide-eyed in disbelief. “In the middle of the dive, I heard a little girl go EEEEE!” laughed Rohrer, wide-eyed himself. “I thought uh-oh!” But he is Katonah’s top diver, and the finish was as smooth as it was high.

Second in the event Pat Kelly, who scored 10 - 9 ½ - 9 ½ with the crazy twists and flips that he is well known for. Third place went to 10-year old Adam Saint-Jacques, who wowed the crowd with his twisty combo and scored 9-10-9. Not bad for a diver who has never competed in even a B-meet before! 

The other event was Synchronized Diving. Think regular diving is hard? Try doing it with a partner! Katonah again took 1st, with the diving duo they called “Matt Squared.”  Matt Dunworth, this year’s Dive Coach, stepped up on the board to pair with Matt Rohrer. They were mirror images of each other off the board, in the air and into the pool. It sounds corny, but the crowd went wild! The two came up all smiles to the best scores of the day: 9 ½ - 10 - 100!!

Dunworth, also one of Katonah’s top divers, is not competing this summer in regular season meets. At 18, he is still eligible, but as a coach, he has to be a judge at regular meets instead of a diver. But today there were other officials to take his place. “It was a lot of fun to be diving again!” said Dunworth. “And I’m very glad to see all the kids having fun with this. Synchro is a good bonding experience for them. It builds team work. You always have to be looking to the side for timing with your partner.”

The swimming events were just as crazy and fun! Among the many events, there is the Kickboard Relay, Clothing Relay, Lifeguard Relay, Parent’s Relay, Staff Relay. The Staff Relay includes coaches and lifeguards, many times one in the same. Having aged out of KSDT swimming last year, and now an instructor guard at Bedford Hills pool, Michael Rosenthal received a warm welcome back, even though he returned to swim in the Staff Relay for ... Bedford Hills! 

The Crazy Relay gets the highest marks for the fun factor! Each swimmer in the Crazy Relay is a different age group and has to do a different stroke:  6 & under kickboard, 8 & under doggie paddle (barking optional), 10 & under sidestroke, 12 & under corkscrew (one stroke free/one stroke back so you are actually rolling over!), 14 & one-arm fly (isn’t two-arm hard enough?), 18 & under Hawaiian breaststroke (feet first on your back).

In the Girls Crazy Relay, Linn Carbaugh propelled herself across the pool doing the smoothest corkscrew ever seen in Katonah. “She makes it look like a real stroke!” said an amazed KSDT teammate Mary Helen Baudinet.

The 18 & under Hawaiian breaststroke is know as the “sinker stroke.” One of Lewisboro’s coaches, Matt Kaufmann, would know this from years of doing this as a Lewisboro swimmer. “I looked at the event and saw that it was TWO laps of Hawaiian breast,” said Kaufman laughing. ‘”I thought, what are they crazy?” 

In the Boys Crazy Relay, KSDT’s Greg Markert and Lewisboro’s Jamie Ring got ready to do their best Hawaiian breast, lanes side by side. Lewisboro and Katonah swimmers compete in the summer, and also together on the John Jay High School swim teams, so they all know each other well. Markert and Ring were co-captains on the JJHS swim team. In the water almost together, Ring took the lead by a foot in the 1st lap and held it into the turn. Literally side by side, they were talking to each other the whole way into the turn. “Point your toes, point your toes!” called out Lewisboro head coach Meg Kaplan, laughing with the others. The crowd began to yell louder as Markert passed Ring, the two still talking! Markert toed into the wall first to beat his friend to the cheers of both teams. 

The meet ended with the biggest trophy going to Chappaqua, Bedford Village took 2nd, and Katonah was 3rd. Yet, for these swimmers and divers, the stories will last all summer!