Swimming hall of fame welcomes six new members

Elyria's Earl Chesler, Firelands' Laura (Clark) Mason, Elyria Catholic's Paige (Samek) Lapchak and MacKenzie Tweardy, Avon Lake's Morgan Srail and former longtime Elyria Y coach Dave Wessely make up the third Lorain County Swimming and Diving Hall of Fame class, which will be enshrined online this month. Due to COVID-19 restrictions a formal ceremony for this year's class will take place along with the induction for the 2022 class. This year's enshrinees: Earl Chesler (Elyria High, class of 1935) Chesler was Elyria's swim team in 1935. The school had dropped the sport due to the Great Depression in 1934 but Chesler continued his rigorous training at the Elyria YMCA. At his own expense, he competed and finished second at the Lake Erie League meet, second at the Northeast Ohio district meet, third at the Northeast Ohio senior competition and fourth at the 1935 Division I state championships. His best time in the 100-yard breast was 1:13 at district. The state record at the time was 1:12.3. Chesler continued his swimming career at Ohio State, where he received his freshman letter for the 1935-36 season and a varsity letter for the 1939-40 season. He graduated from OSU in 1940. Ohio State won the national AAU indoor championship with Chesler taking second in the 200-yard breaststroke. He was also part of a record-setting 800-yard relay team that established the world record Feb. 4, 1939, in a dual meet against Wayne University. Chesler teamed with Olympic breast-stroke champion Johnny Higgins and teammates Al McKee and Bob Johnson to set the record with a time of 10:08.6, beating the previous mark held by the University of Michigan by nearly six seconds. Chesler was a captain in the United States Army, serving in World War II in the South Pacific as a navigator, bombardier and a statistical control captain. He served from Nov. 21, 1942, until March 8, 1946. "He was a terrific dad," said his son, John. "He was very quiet. He was very reserved, very conservative, very hard worker. One thing you have to know about my dad, he didn't talk much, he didn't share much. The only thing we know really is from newspaper clippings. I would say it was probably the best time of his life, that and being in the U.S. Air Force were probably the highlights of his life. He started his own business, quite successful. Everybody liked my dad. Like I said, he was friendly, but like I said he was very quiet and very reserved." Chesler died March 19, 2007, at age 89 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Laura (Clark) Mason (Firelands, class of 2006) The eight-time Division II All-Ohioan is still the face of the Firelands swim program even though the sport was dropped after 12 seasons following the 2010-11 season. Mason holds school records in four individual events and three relays. A standout in the 200- and 500-yard free, she earned All-Ohio (top 16) four times in each event. She was a very consistent performer at the state level, finishing in the top six three times in both the 200 and 500 free. "It was awesome to represent your high school that wasn't known for their sports and to be part of building a swim team," Mason said. Mason finished fourth at the Division II state meet in the 500 free as a junior and as a senior. Her 500 free time of 5:03.36 at the 2005 state meet remains the county record. She also holds the county record in the 200 free (1:55.67), which she set at the 2006 state meet as a senior. "What swimming has taught me through the years is that setting goals and trying to obtain those goals was so important," she said. "It just felt really good that your hard work paid off once you obtained those goals. From the very beginning I knew that I wanted to compete at the state level and I also knew I wanted to eventually go on and swim for college." Mason excelled at the college level for the University of Louisville, qualifying to the Big East Tournament four straight years (2007-10). She started swimming in 1992 at age 4 with the Amherst summer rec team then moved on to train with the Lorain County Family YMCA Torpedoes from 1998-2003. She made an even bigger step in her high school years by training with the Lake Erie Silver Dolphins in Gates Mills from 2004-06 under legendary Hawken coach Jerry Holtrey. Paige (Samek) Lapchak (Elyria Catholic, class of 2007) The Elyria Catholic program began during the 1998-99 school year, but it wasn't until Lapchak's freshman year in the 2003-04 season that it really made a splash. Lapchak was EC's first state qualifier, earning Division II All-Ohio status (top 16) with a 10th-place at state in the 50-yard free (25.30). She also placed 22nd in the 100 free (56.50). By the time Lapchak graduated in 2007, she was an 11-time All-Ohio swimmer and a 12-time state qualifier. As much as she enjoyed her individual accomplishments, she most enjoyed being part of a team. The Panthers' 200 free relay (1:40.41) and 400 free relay (3:45.25) placed second and seventh, respectively, at the 2006 state meet in Lapchak's junior year. Her senior season the 200 and 400 both took fourth in 1:40.81 and 3:41.61 at state. "You go on these relays and you're with these girls that you work so hard with all year," Lapchak said. "You have all this energy from the relays that we did so well in. It transferred over into everyone's individual events. The fact that we were even competing at the level that we were at with schools like Hawken was so cool." Individually, Samek finished in the top five at state three times in the 50 free, taking third as a junior (24.31) and fifth as a sophomore (24.65) and senior (24.87). Morgan Srail (Avon Lake, class of 2011) Srail found her groove at the perfect time as a senior. After three straight years of failing to place higher than 10th at state, she took runner-up honors in a field of 24 divers at the 2011 Division I state meet at Canton McKinley's CT Branin Natatorium. Srail scored 473.75 in the 11-dive competition, finishing behind Cuyahoga Falls senior Haleigh Bartlett (482.35). Bartlett was the 2010 state runner-up when Srail finished a distant 17th. "I do feel like at the state meet I was performing to the best of my abilities," Srail said. "We worked very hard to be there. I didn't feel like I missed any dives. It was really my peak performance." A week earlier, Srail defeated Bartlett 478.95 to 471.20 to win the Cleveland State Division I district. Bartlett won it the year before when Srail finished fourth. "It was very special to achieve everything we did in high school in placing second at state," Srail said, "but it's really been the people that I've stayed in contact with and shared memories that have been very special." Srail went on to excel in diving for Ohio University, winning the 3-meter 2014 Mid-American Conference title. Her 2014 MAC score of 339.05 still ranks No. 2 all-time at OU. MacKenzie Tweardy (Elyria Catholic, class of 2011) A three-time Division II All-Ohio (top 16) diver, Tweardy was state runner-up in 2011. In college she was an All-Big Ten silver and bronze medalist and NCAA All-American in the 10-meter platform at Purdue. Tweardy's diving career took off the result of a "big break." The career switch was the result of a broken right wrist Aug. 30, 2007, while practicing a back handspring series on balance beam for her club gymnastics team heading into her freshman year. Tweardy dislocated and broke both the radius and ulna. Through the encouragement of her parents, Tweardy transitioned over to dive training that fall and managed to finish seventh at the 2008 Cleveland State Division II Northeast district meet. "I really didn't enjoy it that much because it wasn't gymnastics," Tweardy said of her introduction to diving. "I was pretty much begging my mom to be done with it. I wanted to just finish the season out and get back to gymnastics. My attitude changed after the districts. It definitely motivated me more. I knew I wanted to make state." She did, finishing ninth as a sophomore and seventh as a junior before nearly winning it all as a senior. She finished second at the 2011 Division II state meet to Gahanna Columbus Academy senior Natalie Ritter by barely two points, 454.80 to 452.60. Tweardy's dive career reached a whole new level at Purdue (2011-15), where she earned NCAA All-American and All-Big 10 honors and went on to place 10th in the 10-meter platform at the 2016 US Olympic Trials. "It drove me to go to elite levels at college," Tweardy said. "I always wanted to find out how to get to the next level. I knew what I needed to do to get there. It was just a matter of execution of it. I wanted to make the Olympics. I didn't, but at the exact same time I'm not necessarily disappointed because I was a diver who started when she was 14 and didn't start platform until she was 18. Just making finals at Trials was a huge accomplishment. I think Trials was the first meet I competed at that I didn't feel I missed out on anything. To this day I think of the Trials as the perfect meet. It was awesome, it was fun. It was relaxing and enjoying the last hurrah." Coach David Wessely (Elyria Y, North Ridgeville, Elyria Catholic) The Elyrian was a big reason the Elyria YMCA program was a juggernaut for nearly three decades, compiling a dual-meet record of 174-19. Along with Fred Doll, the Elyria Y program was a major impretus in high school swimming taking off in Lorain County in the late 1990s. "Fred retired before I did but Fred deserves an awful lot of credit," said Wessely, 76. "As far as the kids, my thought was when you saw them as 10-year-olds and then saw them as high school graduate, going to college, getting married and then having kids of their own ... that was something when I was 30 years old I never thought about. But boy, oh boy, that became pretty important. Many of those 10-years-olds back then are still personal friends today." Between 1971-98, Wessely's Elyria Y team was league champions 10 years and runners-up 11. A total of 41 boys and 28 girls represented the Elyria YMCA at 24 National YMCA championships over the years. The program ended when the Elyria Y closed its doors in February of 2006. "I'm sorry that the Y doesn't exist today," said Wessely. "That's a sad situation, but it is what it is. The Elyria Y was a feeder program. That's what it really boiled down to." Wessely also served as coach for North Ridgeville (1992-98) and was an assistant for Elyria Catholic (2003-06) and the West Shore Elyria Y (2006-12). Contact Paul Heyse at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.