Josh DeMarco recalled his freshman year, when the Lawrence High boys swim team was just skimming by.
“We couldn’t even fill a full roster,” the Cardinals senior said. “We had 12 people and we still made it to quarterfinals of states. It’s cool to see how its developed. Everyone has gotten better. It’s just crazy to see how everyone is progressing.”
Lawrence progressed to its finest showing in the NJSIAA Central Jersey sectionals in nine years, as the Cardinals reached the CJ C finals before falling to powerful Moorestown. They finished 10-3 overall, took second in the Colonial Valley Conference Championship and earned eight first-place medals at the CVC meet.
“Every year our goal is to get one step further in states,” head coach Ryan Shive said. “We kept making the semifinals and coming up a little bit short.”
Not this time.
“We knew we had a special group; we rebounded our numbers a little bit,” said Shive, who was assisted by Emily Palombo and Hillary Hargraves-Dix. “This year our swimmers are dedicated and motivated. They practiced really strong. We’re really proud of how well they were dedicated to the sport, and taking advantage of their potential to have such a great year.”
The Cardinals were paced by four powerhouse swimmers – seniors DeMarco and Nick Straka and juniors Aidan Verga and Yusef Kurbetinov. The four combined to set all three school relay records, while DeMarco owns the 200 IM (2:08.03) and 100 breast (1:03.59) records, and Straka set the standard in the 100 free (52.43) and 100 back (52.09).
“Josh broke the breaststroke record as a freshman in his first swim meet and that was a 20-year-old record,” Shive said. “He broke it again by five seconds. It’s incredible.”
His school record time is also a CVC meet record, as it broke the 2023 mark of 1:03.84 set by Princeton’s Daniel Baytin in what was then the Mercer County meet. DeMarco was there for Baytin’s feat.
“Ever since I saw that record broken my freshman year I wanted it,” he said. “I was in the heat before (Baytin). I was like ‘That’s gonna be mine before I graduate.’ Breaking it was honestly one of the best feelings I’ve had in a long time.
“My sophomore and junior year I wasn’t focusing on breaststroke, I was developing other strokes. And it showed. This year I’ve been working really hard on it. I almost broke two records that day, I came really close to the 200 IM. But I’ll take the one. That was my goal.”
The Cards won eight gold medals that day and finished second overall to a West Windsor-Plainsboro South team with a lot of depth. DeMarco earned MVP honors, edging out Straka. Both won four events, but DeMarco’s record swim tipped the scale.
“Coaches were asking me who should be Swimmer of the Meet, Nick or Josh?” Shive said. “How could I even choose? I even had a conversation with them. I said ‘However this is gonna fall, in our eyes you are both swimmers that deserve it.
“Nick deserved it but Josh ended up being the fastest breaststroker in the history of the tournament so he earned that award. We weren’t anticipating that, we were hoping he’d take first in the breaststroke. But the record? We didn’t know that was in the Cards. He went out and put it all out there.”
DeMarco also felt Nick was a worthy candidate and figured his breaststroke effort was probably the deciding factor.
“Nick is my best friend, I’ve been swimming with him since I was 11,” DeMarco said. “I wouldn’t want it to come down to a tie-break. If I didn’t break a meet record we’d both have four golds and no records. If that happened I would happily cut the plaque in half and given it to my best friend. I’m happy there wasn’t a debate. If you break the record it kind of seals the deal for MVP.”
DeMarco also won the 200 IM while Straka took the 100 and 200 free. Kurbetdinov claimed the 400 free, Verga won the 100 back and all four combined to cop the 200 medley relay and 400 free relay.
“They’re incredible athletes, we are very fortunate to have them on our team all at the same time,” Shive said. “Josh and Nick’s success is four years in the making. For the past couple years at CVCs they were the top three swimmers, just waiting to take that extra step to take first.”
Verga, Straka and DeMarco swim together on the Express swim team and Kurbetdinov swims for Excel. They are all tight with one another.
“I would say our chemistry is very good together,” Shive said. “We’re each only good at specific things that are other person’s weaknesses. Aiden and Nick are good in backstroke and sprint freestyle, which me and Yusef both struggle in. Me and Yusef are short access people and longer distance people.
“We do push each other and have a good friendship, joking with each other. But at CVCs we were serious, so pumped. It’s a joking around friendship but serious when we have to be serious.”
Shive noted that seniors Aiden Crowley, who came out for swimming for the first time this year, and captain Carter Edwards both contributed, as did sophomore Anthony Pawlak.
“Carter Edwards is one of our utility swimmers, he goes in where we need him and is a great leader,” the coach said. “Aiden has also been a great contributor, mostly in our relays.
“Anthony Pawlak also can kind of go anywhere, he’s like Aiden Verga but a year younger. He does a lot of clean-up work getting thirds and seconds behind the top four.”
DeMarco noted that the Cardinals also has some young talent that will help offset the loss of this year’s seniors, and that helped out the current team as well.
“We got a wave of freshmen and sophomores,” he said. “We always had those people to take first but we never had those people to take fourths and fifths. Against (West Windsor) North (in the CJ C semis) it was a closer meet. We took first in every single event and we had people step up and get their places we needed them to get and we won by 30. That definitely was a driving force.”
He was referring to guys like sophomores Jackson Gauthier, Ian Abramowitz, Yaroslav Bondarenko, Travis Sisk and Rian Wijesuriya, and freshman William Nelessen, who all contributed points in two straight wins over the Northern Knights.
The sectional semifinal victory will live large in DeMarco’s memory.
“We came into this season with more edge than we ever had,” he said. “Last season we got bumped out at the semifinals and we had to drive an hour to the meet just to lose. And this year our goal was to make it to the sectional finals, regardless of winning or losing. It was incredible to finally see that happen.”
Despite the loss to Moorestown, the Cardinals were still smiling as they awaited the state individual meet, in which all the Big 4 will be participating in various events.
“At the end of the day the message to the team was that this was the furthest we’ve gone in a long time and we lost to a tremendous team,” Shive said. “We wanted to leave everything in the water. Regardless of the outcome we trained our hardest.”
And he will always remember his record-setting swimmers, who were about more than just individual glory.
“They don’t complain about anything,” the coach said. “You can give them the most grueling lineup there is and they’re just there to help the team win and perform their best when they need to. They push each other to do that.”
And this year, they pushed themselves into a whole lot of success.
LHS swimmers Nick Straka (left), Yusuf Kurbetinov, Josh DeMarco and Aidan Verga pose for photo after combining for eight gold medals in the Colonial Valley Conference Championship.,
