The Hanover Stingrays summer swim team opened its season in the Suburban Swim League of the Lehigh Valley against Macungie on June 13 at the new Hanover pool.

“Hanover took the ‘L’ they had and turned everything 90 degrees, and the blocks are where the diving boards and slide used to be,” said Stingrays head coach Evan Kocon. “Today was like, is it actually going work? You have a vision of what a meet is going flow like: where people are gonna go, where the kids are gonna line up, how everybody’s gonna watch the meet. And in a new facility, you never really know.

“I’ve been fortunate to be able to basically christen Memorial (Pool) with its first-ever meet and now here. We just have to get used to the bulkhead. Other pools have bulkheads, so we just had to make the timers aware of it, and I think everybody loved it. Nobody fell in, which is good, and the kids had a great time. I just told them they did a great job of adapting to a new situation.”

Hanover’s boys won their part of the meet, 164-135, and Macungie’s girls won, 197-96, with the overall victory going to Macungie, 332-260.

First-place finishers for the Stingrays in the order of events were the Boys 8 & Under 100 freestyle relay team of Landon Black, Michael Passalugo, Joey Franzyshen, and Anthony Simoes (1:16.87), Desmond Murray in Boys 13-14 50 free (29.39), David Gabrielle in Boys 15 & Over 50 free (22.91), the Girls 9-10 100 medley relay team of Abigail Aguilar, Maggie Guerin, Raya Brandes, and Carly West (1:22.33), and the Boys 11-12 100 medley relay team of Liam Powers, Max Salce, Lucas Maldonado, and Pax Dirany (1:21.56).

Lily Molchany in the Girls 8 & Under 25 breaststroke (23.46), Landon Black in the Boys 8 & Under 25 breast (24.75), Adam Barlow in the Boys 13-14 50 breast (28.69), Liam Powers in the Boys 11-12 100 IM (1:22.26), David Gabrielle in the Boys 15 & Over 100 IM (59.58), Landon Black in the Boys 8 & Under 25 butterfly (23.08), Liam Powers in the Boys 11-12 50 fly (37.08), and Pablo Dayan in the Boys 13-14 50 fly (34.83).

Michael Passalugo in the Boys 8 & Under backstroke (23.94), Lily Arnold in the Girls 9-10 Exhibition backstroke (22.59), Kohen Greb in the Boys 9-10 Exhibition back (22.66), Liam Powers in the Boys 11-12 back (38.08), Cameron Alvino in the Girls 15 & Over 50 back (31.37), Ashlyn Cepin in the Girls 8 & Under 25 free (19.57), Landon Black in the Boys 8 & Under 25 free (17.45), Lily Arnold in the Girls 9-10 Exhibition 25 free (18.72), Kohen Greb in the Boys 9-10 25 free (16.95), Sean Dowd in the Boys 11-12 Exhibition 50 free (42.14), and Adam Barlow in the Boys 13-14 100 free (55.22).

Anthony Simoes, Kohen Greb, Lucas Maldonado, Matthew Gould, and Desmond Murray combined to win the crescendo relay for the Stingrays (2:09.14).

“I’m fortunate to have my 15 & Over kids and a ton of 8 & Unders. Every other age group is pretty solid. We’re just very young in our age groups,” said Kocon. “The 13-14 girls are really small. We only have three right now, but that age is tough. That’s when kids start to branch out into other sports, but each of those girls can do each of the four strokes, so they can be versatile, which is good.”