Boys Swimming: Farmingdale 2011 Preview

Having graduated 16 seniors last year, the Farmingdale boys swim team certainly has a challenging season ahead. Despite being such a young team, there is still an abundance of talent and definite potential amongst the boys. The current team stands with 42 swimmers, the largest roster Farmingdale has seen in several years.

Last season, Coach Ken Ilchuk led the Dalers through a very successful season, finishing second in their conference. Eleven seniors qualified for the county championships, where six earned various post season honors. Although a strong portion of the team has graduated, Ilchuk holds a great deal of confidence in this year's swimmers. 

"This year is a little bit of a rebuilding year," he said. "We are trying to fill a lot of our spots."

Last Season: 10-2 overall, finishing second in their conference

Coach: Ken Ilchuk (13th year)

Diving Coach: Randy Corcoran (10th year)

Top Swimmers:

• Greg Carman: senior, distance freestyler
• Joe Scaglione: senior, sprinter
• Tom Gehlbach: senior, sprinter
• Billy Specht: senior, diver
• Vinny Mattei: freshman, freestyler

Position Breakdown: With two county finalists at the head of the team, Ilchuk hopes their experience and success can help guide the younger swimmers. Captains Greg Carman and Joe Scaglione have been two valuable assets to the Farmingdale team all of their high school career. "They are the two we'll lean on the most this year," Ilchuk said of his senior captains.

Greg Carman is the team's top distance freestyler, specializing in the 200-yard and 500-yard swim. Joe Scaglione is one of the leading sprinters, who will generally be participating in the 50-yard free and 100-yard free swim. 

Senior sprinter Tom Gehlbach also brings a lot to the team as a former county finalist. Just like Scaglione, Gehlbach will predominantly be swimming the 50-yard free and 100-yard free. Billy Specht is one of the team's key divers this season. In his last year at Farmingdale High School, Specht is expected to give an impressive performance for the Dalers.

Vincent Mattei is one of the up and coming freshman swimmers. "He is a very strong free styler as well, but he is a young guy and we're still trying to figure out where he'll do best for us," said Coach Ilchuk.

Expectations: So far, the Dalers have competed in the first two meets of the season and were defeated both times. "We're a young team so we're spending a lot of time in these early events and practices trying to figure out who fits in what event, and what people's strengths and weaknesses are," Ilchuk said. "With so many new kids, it's been a bit of an experiment."

"We'd still like to compete for the Conference II title," Ilchuk added. "We would like to finish top three in our division and top seven in the county, those are pretty standard goals for our team."

With such a successful season last year, hopes are still high from both the coaches and the swimmers. "We have a lot of freestylers, and a lot of very good sprinters but we really need to improve our offstrokes; butterfly, backstrokes," Ilchuk said. After losing nearly half of the former team, many gaps were left open and will take time to fill.

"We do have a lot of young kids and we are hoping everyone continue to improve," Ilchuk said of the season's future. "Hopefully as all the swimmers get faster, we'll have more success as a team."

Key Meets:

• Cold Spring Harbor High School
• Syosset High School

"It's early in the season so we are now doing our crossovers meets," said Ilchuk. "Cold Spring Harbor and Syosset will definitely be our biggest competition come January."