Continuing a season-long trend, the Dalers turned in 16 personal best times, and added two additional season best times on their way to a 6th place finish in the Nassau County Swimming and Diving Championships on Friday at Eisenhower Park. Farmingdale entered the season ranked 8th in Nassau. They finished 9th in the county meet last season.

The medley relay team of Dennis Peterson (Jr.), Dom Boccio (Fr.), Roy Seter (Sr.), and Jim McCabe (Fr.) dropped one spot from Thursday's finish to 7th, but their time of 1:54.48 was a season best. Boccio then jumped in the water and swam to a 12th place finish in the 200 free in a personal best time of 1:59.84. It was the first time the 9th-grader broke the 2:00 mark in the event. Also finishing in the top 20 was 8th-grader Joe Reade (19th) who moved up one spot from Thursday's preliminary round.

Peterson kept dropping time in the IM as well. His 2:19.62 was good for 10th place and represented a full second drop from Thursday's meet. Seter also placed, finishing 14th in 2:24.0, just tenths off his personal best time.

On Thursday, the Dalers had placed three swimmers in the consolation heats for the 50 Free. They didn't disappoint on day two. Junior Kyle Blyman (24.14), sophomore Greg Padden (24.49) and McCabe (24.68) finished 12th, 15th and 18th, respectively in one of Farmingdale's highest-scoring events of the night.

Sophomore Charlie Psillos was moved to 9th place in the county diving standings (one of the finishers ahead of him in Thursday night's event was an independent and didn't count toward (meet scoring), bumping sophomore Chris Camerlengo to 18th overall.

Then, in the 100 Free, Blyman came back with a personal best 54.77, moving up three spots from Thursday for a 14th place finish.

Now you may remember, there was a little problem during the 500 on Thursday. Well, this time the lights stayed on, and the Dalers distance swimmers got the job done. Sal Risi, who thought he had disappeared in Thursday's prelim, did the exact opposite on Friday. He made a big splash with a 15-second drop in time, finishing 15th in a time of 5:43.9. Reade, who had slashed 13 seconds on Thursday after cutting seven seconds off his best at least week's division meet, dropped another three seconds to finish in 5:50.10, good for 16th place. Sophomore Chris Rogers also got in the act, winning his heat and finishing in 20th place. Junior Keith Maca had a great race also, dropping 10 seconds for a personal best 6:17.

The 200 Free Relay of Padden, McCabe, Seter and Blyman finished 6th, and then Peterson turned in his 3rd Top Ten swim of the night with a 6th place finish in the 100 Backstroke in a personal best 1:03.49. Another surprise on Friday came from sophomore Tom Maca who dropped three seconds in his backstroke and finished 19th, scoring county points for the first time. Great job Tom! Sophomore Rob Kendrick also swam a personal best (1:13) and senior Mike Eckert finished his career with a 25th place finish.

At this point, Farmingdale was teetering somewhere between 6th and 10th, but our breaststrokers were outstanding. Boccio finished 10th in a personal best 1:09.80, followed by Padden, who swam a remarkable 1:10 (five seconds below his best time,) in 12th place.

Sophomore Dave Piesnikowski moved up to 17th place, dropping two and a half seconds (1:13.3). Seter finished his career with a 23rd place finish.

The last relay, Blyman (55.1), Psillos (56.0), senior Rich Cassar (55.2) and Boccio (54.0) swam a season best 3:40 to finish 6th to round out a strong performance.

Good Sports: The Dalers received this year's Nassau County Sportsmanship Award from the Long Island Swimming Officials Association. The award was presented during the meet on Friday. Congratulations to all our team members, parents, and everyone involved with our program for showing a tremendous amount of class both in and out of the pool.

State Quals: Sal Risi (200 Free, 500 Free), Kyle Blyman (50 Free, 100 Free, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay), Dennis Peterson (200 IM, 100 Back), Dom Boccio (200 Free, 100 Breast, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay), Jim McCabe (50 Free, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay) and Joe Reade (200 Free, 500 Free, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay) represented the Dalers at the Section VIII New York State Qualifying Meet on Tuesday, Feb. 24.