WETHERSFIELD – Lee Schwartzman always thought about the bus ride home from Glastonbury.
It wasn’t a long ride back to Wethersfield, just over the Connecticut River bridge. But it seemed a lot longer every time his Wethersfield boys and girls swim teams returned after a loss, which happened a lot.
“That bus ride home just (stinks),” he said. “We’ve lost to other teams in my career, but we’ve also beaten those other teams.
“We’ve had close meets there, boys and girls – I was just like, ‘I want that bus ride home for you guys (to be good).’ Not where you’re just pretending to be happy because you swam well.”
This season, Wethersfield finally had a good bus ride home from Glastonbury. A few weeks ago, Schwartzman got his 300th career victory for boys and girls, with a win over the Manchester co-op.
But it was the 94-92 win over Glastonbury, last year’s Class LL runner-up and consistently one of the top teams in the state, on Sept. 9 that was more exciting to Schwartzman.
The Eagles are 9-1 heading into Thursday’s CCC North championships at Wethersfield High, with their only loss coming to Conard in the first meet of the season. They’ve won 17 consecutive conference titles and are looking for No. 18.
Lee Schwartzman and assistants Heather Stetson and Dave McOmber pose with the Wethersfield girls swim team, which is 9-1 this season, heading into the CCC North conference championships. (Photo by Lori Riley)
The Wethersfield girls swim team has only beaten Glastonbury three times since 2007 when Schwartzman started to coach the team.
It happened in 2017, then again two years ago. This season was the first time Schwartzman’s team won at Glastonbury.
“The last three years have come down to the last relay,” Schwartzman said. “We needed to get second and third to win and we got second and third.”
The meet did not start off well. At one point, Wethersfield was losing by 18 points.
“Heather (Stetson) is one of my former swimmers – she helps out – and I’m sitting next to her at diving and I’m like, ‘Here we go again, this is falling apart,’” Schwartzman said. “I’m trying to tell them, ‘We got this. Who’s going to be the person…’ but in the back of my head, I’m like, ‘It’s over…’
“But they didn’t give up. I didn’t tell them we were behind. They just kept coming back.”
It started with the 100 butterfly. Swim coaches write up their predictions of how the meets are going to go; he had his Eagles finishing 4-5-6 but junior Madeline Cardany finished second.
“We had just talked about it, ‘Someone’s got to be the spark, someone’s got to step up,’ and that was the start,” Schwartzman said. “That gives other people confidence. Every single event, we did better than we were supposed to.”
Senior Milena Brodowicz, who will swim at Bryant next year, shared her coach’s pessimism mid-meet.
“I still had hope, but I didn’t think we were going to win,” said Brodowicz, who was the Class M 200 free champion last year. “Then a few girls had amazing swims and it kind of sparked a fire in us. Everybody was cheering so loud. It kind of shows the kind of team we are.”
Schwartzman has nine seniors on this year’s team. Last year, the Eagles finished third in Class M behind Pomperaug and Brookfield. Two years ago, they were the Class M runners-up. Pomperaug has won the Class M title the last three years.
Wethersfield, which was also the Class M runner-up in 2014, has never won a state title and could be a contender this year, along with East Lyme, Pomperaug, Brookfield and Guilford.
“Last year, we start the year and lose two meets off the bat, that was hard to recover from,” Schwartzman said. “I told the team this, that I thought we didn’t get second last year because of September. It was hard to regroup after those two meets.
“Today we were talking about the end of the season and regardless of where we place, I won’t feel like there will be any kind of regrets that we didn’t give 100 percent this season. We did everything. They’ve been focused every day at practice.”
