Pomona Looks to Take Momentum Into Tri-County Championships
What’s going to be interesting is if having a week’s rest or winning a championship this past week will be the best route to winning the 61st annual Bert German Tri-County Swim Championships.
Last week we talked about four-time defending champion Wedgewood Swim Club of Haddonfield, had the week off.
Many teams compete in county or in the case of the Cherry Bowl, city meets the week before Tri-County.
Wedgewood coach Jim Villa said he would use the week off to train his team harder and then ease up this week leading to the championship.
This year’s Tri-County championship will be staged at Wenonah Swim Club Saturday and Sunday.
It’s the culmination of the swim season for the 34 co-ed teams who have swimmers starting at 8-and-under all the way up to 15-18.
While Wedgewood, which is based in Haddonfield, was off, Ponoma of Cinnaminson was off winning the Jack Hafner Invitational, the Burlington County championships.
It’s been quite a recent rise for Pomona, which won the Division B title last year, moved up to Division A this year and won that, breaking a six-year run by Wedgewood.
And of course, Pomona opened the dual meet season with a nine-point win over Wedgewood.
So now the question is whether Pomona will have momentum after winning its own county meet or be more mentally exhausted after putting so much into winning the title.
The other local meets last week were the Peach Bowl, the championship of Gloucester County and the Cherry Bowl, the championship of Cherry Hill.
Greenfields of West Deptford edged defending champion Wenonah by 13 points to win the Peach Bowl. That avenged last year’s loss to champion Wenonah in the same event. This season, Wenonah earned a convincing 333-221 dual meet over Greenfields in a Division A meet.
Of course, there are nine teams competing in the Peach Bowl, which is night and day compared to a dual meet.
Erlton lost to B Division champion Old Orchard 292-262 in the regular season but then won the Cherry Bowl by outscoring the Otters, 985.5 to 961.5 in a close Cherry Bowl final.
Neither of these teams figure to challenge for the Tri-County title. In fact even though dual meet dominance doesn’t always translate to big meets, it would be a surprise if either Pomona or Wedgewood didn’t come out victorious.
Either way, Pomona has momentum and it will be interesting if that will be enough for the Dolphins to earn a second win this season over a Wedgewood team that won’t relinquish the title from the previous four seasons very easily.
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Author: Marc Narducci
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