By Ashley Pavlakis
Photo credit – Ashley Pavlakis
Long Island is surrounded by water, so naturally people have gotten fairly good at swimming. If we’re talking about the shared varsity swim team for Hauppauge-Smithtown High Schools, they’re simply unmatched. The team is in a lane of their own, looking for a fourth straight championship this season.
The team is led by head coach Richard Lionetti, who serves on the Girls Swimming & Diving Committee for Section XI in the New York State High School Public Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA). Lionetti has coached at Hauppauge for twenty-two years.
“Yeah, it’s kind of fun. We took our lumps early on, we weren’t that good. We’ve had kids make county and qualify for county. We’ve had some good competitive kids but we haven’t had the horses that we do now,” said Lionetti.
In 2021, both Smithtown and Hauppauge High schools merged to form one team. The merger benefited both teams as Hauppauge needed more swimmers and Smithtown needed a pool. Combining the two teams has worked out for both parties regarding scheduling, a diverse pool of swimmers to choose from, and the social aspect has increased for the girls on the team.
“Their numbers were dwindling, our numbers were dwindling, and financially I think the districts decided we might as well combine. It’s been a great merger, the kids all get along because they all swim together in club,” said Lionetti.
The team has taken home titles three years in a row in both League One and County, going undefeated in the two categories since 2021. Since then, the team has had 31 consecutive wins.
“I think it’s a testament to how hard the kids work. It’s a tradition that the other kids will uphold, they’re not only swimming for themselves but they swim for the team, and they push each other. That’s the best part about our team, we help each other. When you do that, you don’t want to let your other friend down,” Lionetti told The Messenger.
Lionetti has a diverse group of girls that can go into a meet and compete in all aspects. His teams’ strengths fall on the underclassmen as they graduated 12 seniors last year.
“Most of the kids that swim on the team are already club swimmers, they have the background and they’re going to swim.
We have [roughly] 33 kids on the team, and we can get them all into a meet so that everybody can swim, which is the best part about swimming. Everybody has an opportunity to swim at every meet,” said Lionetti.
Lionetti echoed the importance of what it means to have good qualities in a teammate.
“You want somebody that’s coachable, willing to take constructive criticism, a person you’re able to push to be their best, and wants to be pushed to be their best. You want somebody to be a good teammate, you want somebody to buy into what we’re selling.
It’s about the team, it’s not about you, sometimes you have to make sacrifices,” said Lionetti.
