Montgomery Girls Swim Opens Season With 92-78 Win Over Mount St. Mary

Nicholas Mistretta

MHS ’79 Cougar Sports Correspondent

Montgomery High School girls varsity swim coach Claire Scarpa opened her 27th season in impressive fashion, guiding the Cougars to a 92-78 win over Mount St. Mary to start the year 1-0. With longtime program standards on display and strong early-season depth across events, Scarpa and assistant coach Rob Parker saw Montgomery set a confident tone for the winter campaign right out of the gate.

Montgomery’s depth was evident right away in the 200 medley relay, where the A team of Eden Ristuccia, Nina Tadych, Zoe Bitterman and Angela Liu placed first in 2:04.43 to collect eight points. The Cougars also entered B and C relay teams — a sign of early-season roster strength — with Katerina Kondratyev, Leah Zong, Yarin Zarzhitsky and Averie Wu and Katherine Karam, Jessica Wang, Vedika Gupta and Catherine Morris also contributing valuable meet experience.

Tadych delivered one of the meet’s most productive individual showings, winning the 200 IM in 2:27.05 and capturing the 100 breaststroke in 1:16.03. Wu added critical support in both events, placing third in the IM (2:37.60) and second in the breaststroke (1:18.00).

In the distance events, Ristuccia earned first in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:53.45, while Chen and Kondratyev helped secure additional points with third (6:30.07) and fifth (6:40.46) place finishes, respectively. Ristuccia also placed second in the 200 freestyle (2:16.54) with Bitterman right behind in third (2:17.27), giving Montgomery a strong early points stack in one of the meet’s most competitive races.

Sprint points were anchored by Juliet Boulos, who placed second in the 50 freestyle (26.88) and won the 100 freestyle in 1:00.81. Liu followed closely with second in the 100 free (1:04.47) and third in the 50 free (27.96), while Rashi Gandhi added late-lane points with sixth-place finishes in both sprint events.

Montgomery’s relay strength proved decisive. The 200 freestyle relay A team of Boulos, Josephine Chen, Wu and Liu won in 1:56.34, while the 400 freestyle relay A squad of Ristuccia, Boulos, Tadych and Bitterman closed the meet with a first-place finish in 4:05.91 to secure another eight points.

Other scoring efforts included Bitterman’s second-place swim in the 100 butterfly (1:01.85), Zarzhitsky’s third in the 100 backstroke (1:15.87), and point contributions from Karam, Zong and Wang across multiple events.

Photo Credit: Nicholas Mistretta/headlinenewsmontgomery.com