Meadowbrook swimmers in top form

To absolutely no one's surprise, the Meadowbrook Tomatoes are strong favorites to go unbeaten in the Central Maryland Swim League again.

With a team practically bursting at the seams with a record 292 swimmers, coach Solomon Snaid has plenty of talent to harvest during the season and the Tomatoes have responded with a slew of fine performances in their three victories in a brief five-meet regular season that he describes as "short but sweet."

In a recent victory over North St. John's, Meadowbrook's 9-10 200-meter freestyle relay quartet — Elizabeth Fry, Brooke Ruffin, Marietta Gaitley and Sydney Conboy — posted a historic 2:08.68, slicing more than three seconds off the league record for the event.

Even though the coach anticipated that the girls would set a new standard, he had no idea they would simply shatter the mark in the process.

"It was just a tremendous, tremendous swim," said Snaid, now in his second year at the helm of the CMSL Division I juggernaut. "I knew they had it in them, but I didn't know they would get that fired up."

Elizabeth capped off the record-setting effort by swimming the anchor leg in a swift 30.8 seconds, a time that surprised — and pleased — her coach to no end.

She then said that "it felt like we swam fast," while Sydney allowed that she "was nervous before the race" and "very proud" after it.

While Snaid said he was thrilled with the result that led to another victory, the CMSL season is not all about winning.

For one thing, the coach said he would like the sport to become more mainstream, and the best way to do that is to help his swimmers have an enjoyable experience.

"We emphasize having fun, and then going out to race and having more fun. A lot of these kids just love to race."

A couple of prime examples of that are Greta Peacock and Ian Anderson, both of whom are in the 8-and-under bracket and both getting better by the day.

Snaid, who teaches at the Michael Phelps Swim School and was an assistant to Singleton Matthews on the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland B Conference champion Bryn Mawr squad last winter, also mentioned Margaux Trexler, another 9-10 swimmer with a ton of promise..

Trexler had just missed qualifying for the season-ending Straehle Invitational meet, that is, until this season when she had a major breakthrough..

"She worked really hard," Snaid said. "And she might still qualify in other events, too."