Greater Boston Edges at Swim Meet

The swimming events were dominated by two triple gold medal winners from Providence and Chicago, but Greater Boston used depth to win the team scoring over Philadelphia. Before the final three relays, the Sebouhs and Nejdehs both trailed the surprising Ararats with the Varantians close behind. Philly ultimately won the women’s and men’s freestyle relays to pull into a tie for the lead with Boston at 29 points each. But the Nejdehs set a new record in the final coed relay to secure the title 34-32. High scorer Andrew Devedjian and sister Ally scored all of Chicago’s 26 points while record-setting Lily Kernaghan led Providence to fourth place. Racine and Detroit scored 14 and 9 points respectively and Middlesex West recorded its first eight Olympics points as a chapter. New Jersey had six, just ahead of West San Fernando Valley (five) and Manhattan (four). North Andover completed the chapter scoring with one point. WOMEN’S SWIMMING Rookie Lily Kernaghan won three events for Providence and topped last year’s high scorer from Chicago, Ally Devedjian, in two of her events. Kernaghan first won the 50 yard freestyle, ahead of Devedjian and Emily Barsamian of Manhattan. Kernaghan had set a new record of 24.75 earlier in the trials of the event. Kernaghan took the 100 free in 54.72 over the same two ladies, missing the record by 0.35 of a second. She also set a new record of 28.13 in the 50 yard backstroke in front of Azniv Khaligian from Racine and Araz Dulgarian from Middlesex West. Azniv had earlier won the 25 freestyle in 13.47 just ahead of Araz and Jersey veteran Theresa Jelalian. Dulgarian won another silver in the 50 breaststroke behind Knar Topouzian of Detroit who had a time of 43.48. Azniv’s sister Areknaz took the bronze. In the last individual event, Devedjian bounced back to win the 25 butterfly in 13.53. Azniv won the silver and Boston’s Araxi Krafian was third. Finally the girls 4x25 relay saw the host chapter pull away to win in 1:07.54. Detroit took second ahead of New Jersey and Boston. MEN’S SWIMMING In the men’s events, Andrew Devedjian from Chicago took three golds after nearly performing that sweep in 2015. That year Devedjian easily won both freestyles but was touched out in the butterfly. This year, Devedjian topped Michael Ballard of Philadelphia in both freestyle events. Boston’s Joey Charchaflian took bronze in the 50 while Ballard’s teammate Raffi Pogharian was third in the 100. Devedjian recorded times of 24.91 and 58.28. He capped off his evening with a time of 26.22 in the 50 butterfly as Boston veteran Eric Movsesian finished second and Sebouh Raffi Dadaian was third. Movsesian had previously won the other two men’s events decisively. He took the breaststroke in 36.97, ahead of Providence’s Sevan Zobian and Philly’s Garno Khararjian. Movsesian also won the backstroke with a time of 36.18. Alex Arakelian from Philadelphia and Haig Krikorian from West San Fernando took home the other medals. In the 4x50 medley relay event, Greater Boston came from behind to beat Philadelphia in 2:23.93 with the Western Region team in third. The Sebouhs bounced back in the 4x50 freestyle relay to best the Nejdehs with a time of 1:56.72 while the West Coast quartet took third again. The final event was the coed 4x50 freestyle relay where Greater Boston set a new record of 2:10.16. Philadelphia and New Jersey placed second and third.

Greater Boston Edges at Swim Meet

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Bob Tutunjian

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Bob Tutunjian

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