When Angelo Reade clinched his berth to the New York State Federation swim meet on Feb. 3 at the Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Division I championships, he hoped several of his Newburgh Free Academy teammates would join him.

He got his wish, as the Goldbacks qualified five other swimmers for the New York State boys’ swimming championships on Friday and Saturday at the Kelsey Patridge Bird Natatorium at Ithaca College.

“It feels good,” Newburgh state qualifier Jack Mummery said. “It’s been a couple of years since we brought a bunch of kids up to states for our team. It feels good that we’re back to that level.”

The preliminaries will begin at 10 a.m. on Friday and the swimming finals are scheduled for 10 a.m. on Saturday.

Reade and teammate Jack Mummery will each swim in the maximum four events. Reade qualified for states at the OCIAA championship meet and qualified for the 100-yard freestyle as an individual when he finished his leg of the 400-yard freestyle relay in 48.27 seconds, under the state qualifying time of 48.76 seconds.

Mummery met the state qualifying time in three events, the 100-, 200-, and 500-yard freestyle, but he can only swim in two individually. He qualified for states in the 200 at the Section 9 preliminaries when he finished second in 1:44.79 and qualified in the 500 when he finished second in the preliminaries in 4:50.68.

They will both swim in the Goldbacks’ two qualifying relays: the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays.

“It’s very special,” Mummery said. “I missed the cut last year by milliseconds, and I came into this year telling myself how hard I was going to work, and train to get this cut. I’m really proud of myself for doing that.”

The Section 9 preliminaries on Feb. 15 were a special day for the Goldbacks as Mummery, Aidan Domanico (100-yard butterfly) and the 400-yard freestyle relay team qualified for states before the Feb. 17 finals.

“We were pretty hyped up,” Domanico said. “We got a lot of our relays in too, so we’re going to have a lot of kids there. It’s going to be fun.”

As a senior, this will be Domanico’s only trip to the states. He qualified individually when he finished fourth at the preliminaries with a 53.36, just under the standard.

“I’m the first one of my family who could do it,” Domanico said. “My other two brothers were swimmers.”

Peyton Tuttle also qualified for states in the 200-yard freestyle at the finals.
Reade, Mummery and Domanico will team with Vinny Velasquez, after they qualified with a fourth-place finish at the section finals. Reade, Tuttle and Mummery will team with Jackson Cooper after winning the section championship with a qualifying time of 3:14.15.

“We’re really happy about it,” Domanico said. “Our coach hasn’t been there in a couple of years, so we’re really happy to get this for him, for ourselves, for our parents, and everyone who’s helped us. We’re just happy that we got this, and we can show them that our hard work paid off now.”