Vikings hold on to take Round 1 from Falcons

East Lyme - When it was over, Adam Opsahl, the best swimmer in the Eastern Connecticut Conference, admitted he had been a little bit stressed over the last hour and a half.

And Opsahl's coach, East Lyme High School's Jack Stabach, looked the part, sitting in his office, wrung out, with his wife Kim across the room.

"You're just concerned and that's the nature of the beast. They feel this is a big meet," Stabach said. "'What's going to happen tonight?' I told them look at it as an opportunity, go after it and excel."

That's the nature of the beast usually when East Lyme meets Fitch in high school swimming.

In Tuesday's latest installment, East Lyme's boys beat Fitch 98-82, closing out the victory with a win in the 400 freestyle relay in 3 minutes, 42.41 seconds behind Sam Magna, Zach Kosakowski, Opsahl and Clayton Otter. Otter swam the anchor leg, giving him time to rest after finishing second in the breaststroke just prior to that.

That relay broke a string of Fitch victories in five straight events, pulling the Falcons within eight points after Christian Berg's win in the backstroke. Both teams were unbeaten in the ECC entering the meet. East Lyme is now 4-1 overall, 4-0 in the ECC and Fitch is 1-1, 1-1.

East Lyme outscored Fitch 10-0 in diving, with Fitch not fielding a competitor in that event, and led 42-30 at that point, stretching the margin to 53-35 after Opsahl won the butterfly in 56.75 seconds.

Fitch then got wins from Berg in the 100 freestyle (50.54), Andrew Lewis in the 500 freestyle (5:24.37), the 200 free relay team of Berg, Aidan Quinn, Cameron Duffy and Jason Melendez (1:34.93), Berg in the backstroke (56.90) and Duffy in the breaststroke (1:07.42).

Stabach said he knew after seeing Fitch's team in the 200 free relay that the Falcons didn't save enough of their top swimmers for the final relay, having picked the first two relays to load up on their lineups. Yet there was still the matter of the Vikings winning the final event.

"It was good practice for the state championship when the relay means a lot," Stabach said. "Today it meant winning the meet."

Opsahl, The Day's All-Area Swimmer of the Year last year who was also an All-ECC Large Division honorable mention pick in football and plays lacrosse for the Vikings, won the 200 freestyle, as well, against Fitch. He finished in 1:53.42, subbing that race into his rotation instead of swimming the 200 individual medley, as he usually does.

With both coaches, East Lyme's Stabach and Fitch's Ken Berg, both so familiar with each other's swimmers and potential lineup combinations, both tried to throw a few surprises into the mix Tuesday.

With Opsahl in the 200 freestyle, that left Otter to fend for himself in the IM and he did so quite capably, winning in 2:15.27.

"It always feels good to win," said Opsahl, a junior. "The idea (of winning) is fun, but when you're actually racing it is pretty stressful. I always get nervous, even when it's not as tough of competition. I don't know. You don't want to do bad; you always want to go as fast as you can."

"We need to keep working hard so they don't come back and beat us the next time," Otter said.

The teams meet again on Feb. 3 at UConn-Avery Point. In that meet, diving will not be contested because Avery Point no longer has a diving board.

Both coaches say their swimmers can be better by then.

"I've got to do a little more work," Ken Berg said of his Fitch team. "We had exactly the points we thought we would, but with not everyone swimming their best yet. Next time the meet has nothing to do with diving. I don't expect to win but I'm going to try. It's a matter of who's going to work harder before then."

v.fulkerson@theday.com