text: GIRLS SWIMMING: Cheshire second to New Canaan in Class L
  NEW HAVEN -- Cheshire junior Jennifer Tavares had one chance for an individual championship at the CIAC Class L meet at Southern Connecticut State University on Wednesday and she wasn't going to let the opportunity slip by without a fight.
  The plan in the 200-yard freestyle was to go out as hard as she could start to finish -- and, "go for the win." She won in 1 minute, 52.66 seconds.
  Cheshire's Karen Novak and Taylor Deubel had the same plan in the 500 freestyle and 100 breaststroke, respectively, and they put on a show in those event as well. Novak won the 500 freestyle in 5:01.44 and Deubel won the 100 breaststroke in 1:07.75.
  The individual wins, plus wins in the 200 freestyle relay (1:39.19) and 400 freestyle relay (3:34.37, meet record) helped lead Cheshire to a second-place team finish in the meet with 814.5 points. New Canaan won with 835 points and Darien was third with 739.5.
  "I can't complain with second place. I thought we were the best swim team here," Cheshire coach Ed Aston said. " We came away with first place (finishes) and we swam well in the relays. The girls gave us everything we could get tonight.
  "That was a superb effort by Jennifer, a lifetime best. You never know with Jen. She's talented and this effort doesn't surprise me. Taylor, Karen and our relay teams were great. Coming into this, I was just hoping everything would be aligned just right."
  Tavares won the 200 freestyle going away. By the third lap in the event she edged ahead of New Canaan's Cara Egan to take the lead and she kept lengthening the lead. When she finished first the entire Rams team and Tavares threw their arms in the air and cheered.
  "As I was swimming, I looked over and said 'I have this, I'm going to do whatever I have to in order to win this event,'" Tavares said. "My plan was to swim as hard as I could start to finish and that's what I did."
  Tavares ended up beating her Class M qualifying time by nearly 6 seconds.
  "This was a big win for me and for our team," Tavares said. "I won the 200 as a freshman (in Class LL) and I was third last year (Class LL). So this feels great."
  Novak used the entire regular season to set herself up for the win in the 500 freestyle.
  "I just kept pushing hard all season and pushed it as hard as I could tonight," Novak said.
  The big surprise of the night was Mercy's top freestyle sprinter Michaela Kearney, the Register Area MVP for girls' swimming the last two years, missing the event due to sickness. She was the favorite in the 50 freestyle and one of the favorites in the 100 freestyle.
  "She called today and said she was sick," said Mercy coach Keith Nichols. "I don't know the nature of her sickness, all I know is she is sick. Unfortunately, because she didn't compete in Class M she can't compete in the State Open."
  New Canaan coach Dave Fine credited the team's win in the opening event as the Rams won the 200 medley in a Class L record time of 1:47.11.
  "Winning that 200 medley in a meet record time set the tone for us the rest of the meet," Fine said. "We won that and the plan was to hold our own the rest of the meet. We knew Cheshire and Darien were strong and we had to get the early lead to set the tone."
  It was the 11th Class title for the Rams - two Class LL, four Class L, four Class M and one Class S.
  Dana Grindall won the 50-yard freestyle in 24.24 seconds and was second in the 100 butterfly in 56.28 to lead the Amity girls' swim team to a fourth place finish with 448 points at the CIAC Class LL swim meet at Wesleyan University in Middletown on Wednesday.
  Anna Liu added a fourth place finish for Amity in the 200 freestyle in 1:58.17.
  Greenwich won the team title for the 11th time in the last 13 years with 958.5 points. West Haven was ninth with 253 points and Shelton was 10th with 214.
  West Haven's Diana Pimer was second in the 100 breaststroke in 1:07.60 and third in the 200 individual medley in 2:11.99.