The Montclair High School Girls Swim team had a very successful season with a 6-0 record in divisional play a 9-1 record overall and an AVM (Average margin of victory) of 50.6. Additionally, they secured an Essex County Tournament Championship and suffered their first loss of the year in the semifinals of the NJSIAA State Tournament at the hands of Passaic Tech by a score of 86-84.
Some notable swimmers from this season include senior Carly Frank who not only swims every event but did not place below 2nd in any competition. Another is senior Lily Miklaszewski, and although she does not swim every event, like Frank, she did not place below 2nd in any competition. For the junior class, there are two main contributors: Avery Dollard and Reagan Gilligan. Dollard was an integral part of the team as a do-it-all swimmer given that she swims 8 different events and gets consistently good finishes in said events. Finally, there is Gilligan who more than held her own, also did not place below 2nd in any competition, and leads an excellent junior class along with Dollard. Additionally, she received the Cullen Jones Award for the most outstanding swimmer at the Essex County Tournament in Montclair’s 292-267 W over 2nd place Newark Academy.
This is the 6th year in a row that Montclair has had 1 or fewer losses, as they’ve had stellar swimmers who have passed the torch to each other to help continue the team’s dominance. For the 4 years prior to this one, that swimmer was now Navy Swimmer Ela Habjan, who set multiple state records and holds a majority of the school records for girls swimming. Close behind Ela over her 4 years at MHS were now seniors Carly Frank and Lily Miklaszewski, who were mentored by Habjan for the 3 years that all 3 were on the team together. Next year, Carly and Lily will pass the torch to the Gilligan twins, who will hope to continue Montclair’s outstanding reign of dominance in the realm of New Jersey High School Girls Swimming.
Montclair will be losing some of the best swimmers in their history next year in seniors Carly Frank and Lily Miklaszewski, who will be hard to replace, but this team will find a way to do so because they always have in years past. Outside of Frank, Miklaszewski, and a couple of other seniors, the team is young and is still set up for success in the future. Although there are always extremely high expectations set for these girls' swimming teams due to their past success, there is the belief that the team will be able to live up to those expectations behind their amazing class of rising seniors, and the impressive rising junior and sophomore swimmers too.