SFDS Boys Win Swimming Championships and J.J. Weiderhold Breaks a CYO Record

The St. Frances de Sales Boys CYO Swim team ended their season on January 11, by capturing the Class B Championships at the Nassau Aquatic Center. Under the leadership of Mike Courtney and Billy Egan, the team has slowly been rebuilding after Covid drastically reduced the number of boys showing up to Far Rockaway High School every Tuesday and Thursday night for practice. This year, the team had the largest Novice division (grades 1-3) turnout the program has seen in years with over 35 swimmers showing up to practice and meets each week. Courtney and Egan, along fellow coaches Brian Sommerville, Eric Rasmussen, Eric Mundy, Bobby Butler, Chris Gilroy, Pete Brady, Kathleen Tomassetti, Mike Mandella, Ryan Frontera, Jimmy Egan, Jen Callipo, Melissa Redden, Danny Quinn and Kevin McConnell, hope to keep the momentum going into next year.
Novice 3rd grader, J.J. Weiderhold, had an amazing season swimming butterfly dominantly for the bantam division’s (4th/5th grade) medley relay. On December 22, 2024, at the CYO Olympics, J.J. annihilated the Novice 25m breaststroke record with a time of 20.02 seconds. His time was almost a second and a half faster than the previous record. Other Olympic standouts were Theirry O’Donnell and Matt O’Connor both who captured gold in their respective races of Novice 25m backstroke and Bantam 25m backstroke. Senior swimmer William Egan also had a great swim, taking bronze in the 50m backstroke.
The team ended the swim championships with an overall score of 366 points. Each division swam well with Novice and Junior Divisions dominating many of the races. Novice swimmer Henry Wilson swam a commanding 25m free which was followed by the 100m free relay swam by Timmy Briggs, Luke Tomassetti, Jack Brady and Sean O’Grady.
The Bantam division, led by swimmers Pete Brady, RJ Magniccari, Jon Mandella, Thomas Anderson and Liam Courtney finished strong taking third in the 100m free relay and second in the 100m medley relay.
The Junior Division swimmers took charge and placed in the top three in every race. Colin Mundy placed third in the 50m free, James O’Donnell took second in the 50m backstroke, 100m free relay of Michael Rasmussen, Nick Tomassetti, Vince Tomassetti and Bruno Frustaci took second and 100m medley relay of Craig McDonald (backstroke), Anthony Capek (breaststroke), Jack Henley (butterfly) and Jack Sommerville (free) took first.
The senior division, led by 9th graders Jameson Doyle, Billy Thuilot, and Billy McConnell, were honored as part of the traditional senior walk and ended their CYO swimming career as champions. Eighth grade swimmers Billy Papadopoulos, Tommy O’Neill and J.W. Youngberg helped the Senior division capture second in the 200m free relay and third in the 100m medley relay.
See everyone in the pool next year!