The FCIAC always has great success in the fall sport of girls’ swimming and diving and this autumn’s achievements held true to that.
It was another great year for conference teams. Another year in which Greenwich added to its vast collection of team championships and so many FCIAC swimmers and divers won their respective events throughout the three post-season championship meets.
Coach Brendan Heller’s Greenwich Cardinals achieved the 20th Triple Crown season in school history, first winning the FCIAC championship and then following up with team titles in both state championship meets.
In addition to the great years which Greenwich and Ridgefield both had, teams such as the Norwalk/Brien McMahon cooperative program, Wilton, New Canaan, Darien, Fairfield Ludlowe and Staples also had successful years.
Defending conference champion Ridgefield was runner-up to Greenwich in the FCIAC Championships and State Open. In between those two meets coach Paul Marchese’s Ridgefield Tigers defended their Class L state championship.
Last season Ridgefield completed its Triple Crown season by winning the 2024 State Open after its FCIAC title and Class L state championship.
This year, after Greenwich won the FCIAC championship by 91 points over Ridgefield, the Cardinals racked up a meet record 1,038.5 points to win the 2025 Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class LL Girls Swimming and Diving Championships on Nov. 12, and four days later they won the CIAC State Open by 109.5 points over Ridgefield.
These 2025 Greenwich Cardinals surpassed the old Class LL meet record of 1,012 points which Greenwich set the previous fall season in 2024.
So, with those three more championship plaques now added to the school’s trophy case, Greenwich has accumulated 31 FCIAC championships, 32 in the largest state class championships (eight in L and 24 in LL), and 22 State Open championships.
That adds up to 85 postseason championships since the 1980 Cardinals began that collection with FCIAC and State Open championships 45 years ago.
An indicator as to just how strong girls’ swimming and diving is in the FCIAC relating to other teams and conferences statewide is that GametimeCT selects 36 athletes to three categories of all-state teams, and exactly half of those swimmers or divers are from the FCIAC.
A dozen athletes each are picked for the first team, the second team, and honorable mention. Six FCIAC athletes were chosen for each of those three teams.
Greenwich’s three selections to the 2025 GametimeCT All-State Girls Swimming and Diving First Team were senior freestyler Wesley Wales, junior freestyler Ellison Charette, and freshman diver/swimmer Alden Charette.
They were joined on that all-state first team by New Canaan’s longtime successful senior diver Emma Kelly and Ridgefield’s freshmen Mary Kelly and Zsofia Milak.
Wales won two individual events and was a member of a victorious and runner-up relay team while helping lead Greenwich to the State Open team title on Nov. 16 at Yale University’s Kiphuth Exhibition Pool in New Haven.
The Cardinals won with 721 points and runner-up Ridgefield scored 611.5. Cheshire placed third with 322 points and was followed by FCIAC teams Wilton (242.5), Norwalk/McMahon (229) and New Canaan (225.5).
Wales won two freestyle races – winning the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1 minute, 50.75 seconds before she won the 100 free with a 51.54.
Ellison Charette was the State Open 500-yard freestyle champion (4:57.57). She and Wales teamed up Julia Kozma and Kensington Worden on the winning 200 freestyle relay team (1:35.53) a couple events before Worden, Ellison Charette, Melissa Geiger and Wales swam on the runner-up 400 freestyle relay team (3:28.66). Worden also placed second in the 50 free (23.4).
Greenwich’s quartet of Kozma, Alden Charette, Geiger and Lily Norton placed second in the 200-yard medley relay (1:58.08).
Geiger was selected to the GametimeCT All-State Second Team. Worden and Kozma both made GametimeCT All-State Honorable Mention.
Four days before the State Open on Nov. 12 at Cornerstone Aquatics in West Hartford, Wales won the 200 free and 100 free and swam the third leg on the winning 400 freestyle relay team when the Cardinals snatched the second jewel of their Triple Crown with their meet record score of 1,038.5 points in the Class LL state championship meet.
The Brien McMahon/Norwalk co-op team was runner-up with 596 points as there were five FCIAC teams who placed among the top seven.
Fairfield Ludlowe finished fourth (349 points), while Trumbull (277) and Staples (271) placed sixth and seventh, respectively.
Mary Kelly and Milak, Ridgefield’s two freshmen on the GametimeCT All-State First Team, and senior teammate Ava Ward combined to score 159 points individually at the State Open while also contributing to winning or runner-up relay teams when they led the Tigers to second place.
Ridgefield and Greenwich placed 1-2 in all three relay events, with Ridgefield victorious in the 200-yard medley relay and 400 freestyle relay, and Greenwich the winner in the200 free relay.
Mary Kelly racked up 54 individual points as runner-up in the State Open’s two longest freestyle races, the 200 (1:52.07) and 500 (4:58.767).
Milak scored 53 points when she placed second in the 100 butterfly (27.23) and third in 50 free (23.77).
Ward scored 52 points with third place finishes in the 200 (1:53.16) and 100 (52.06) freestyle races. She was selected to the GametimeCT All-State Second Team.
In the final event of the State Open, that trio of Milak, Mary Kelly and Ward teamed up with Chloe Archibald to win the 400-yard freestyle relay in 3:27.56.
Milak teamed up with Mairead Luhman, Dalia Katra and Ellie Griffin to win the 200-yard medley relay with a 1:47.27 in the first State Open event.
Ward, Griffin, Katra and Mary Kelly were the foursome on Ridgefield’s runner-up 200 free relay team (1:37.18).
Archibald, Griffing and Katra of Ridgefield and St. Joseph’s Maegan Grisanti (FCIAC 100 butterfly runner-up) all earned GametimeCT All-State Honorable Mention.
Five days before the State Open on Nov. 11 at Cornerstone, Mary Kelly (200 free and 500 free) and Milak (50 free and 100 fly) both won two races, and Ward was the winner in the 100 free and runner-up in the 200 free when Ridgefield’s Tigers defended their state championship at the CIAC Class L meet.
Teams from the FCIAC finished in the top three places as Ridgefield scored 930 points and was followed by New Canaan (596.5) and Darien (509).
That was Ridgefield’s third state class championship in four years because the 2022 Tigers copped the Class LL state crown. Ridgefield was runner-up behind Greenwich in the 2023 Class LL meet.
In addition to the Greenwich trio of Wales, Ellison Charette and Alden Charette winning their State Open individual events, the one other FCIAC swimmer who was a State Open champion was Norwalk/McMahon senior Katherine Fedor. She won the 100-yard backstroke (56.45) by 0.84 of a second over Fairfield Warde junior Adrianna Spelman (57.29).
Fedor, Spelman, Norwalk/McMahon sophomore Emma Giafardino, and Fairfield Ludlowe senior Ella Gussen were also among the six conference athletes chosen to the GametimeCT All-State Second Team.
Giafardino (100 breaststroke in 1:05.35) and Gussen (200 individual medley in 2:06.9) both had runner-up finishes at the State Open.
Another significant highlight for the conference this past 2025 fall season was that New Canaan’s longtime successful senior Emma Kelly and Greenwich’s phenomenal freshman Alden Charette were not just the two best divers in the state, but given the very high scores they registered in three championship meets it is not an embellishment to say that their respective postseasons were among the best in state history.
Emma Kelly became a three-peat postseason champion in both the FCIAC and Class L meet. Her FCIAC winning score of 499.35 points nipped Alden Charette (498.35) by just one point.
Emma Kelly then broke the seven-year-old state Class L meet record by 8.9 points with her score of 530.75 points, breaking the old record of 521.85 points set in 2018 by Farrah Volpintesta of Immaculate/Bethel.
Alden Charette got her first postseason individual championship for what will likely be quite a career when she won the one-meter diving at the Class LL state championship meet with 507.55 points.
She and New Canaan’s Emma Kelly dueled it out again at the State Open and Alden Charette evened things up between them with her winning score of 517.85 points which was 11.95 points more than Emma Kelly’s runner-up score of 505.90.
There were 52 athletes who earned their spots on either the All-FCIAC First Team or All-FCIAC Second Team which were determined by winning events or having high place positions in the diving, individual swimming races, and the three relay events at the FCIAC championship meet.
Many athletes earned all-conference kudos in multiple events.
The listing of those swimmers and divers along with their respective events is on the www.fciac.netwebsite and on the link below: