Swimming Tigers Come Alive at Region Championship

Justin Karpinos
 The Tigers posted 35 best times in 37 individual races, which is one of the highest percentages we’ve ever seen at this meet.  In terms of improvement, this was one of the strongest region meets we've ever had; the momentum and energy were almost contagious. 
 
The USN swim team brought 23 qualifiers to the MTHSSA region championship meet last Friday, January 27.  The Tigers posted 35 best times in 37 individual races, which is one of the highest percentages we’ve ever seen at this meet.  In terms of improvement, this was one of the strongest region meets we've ever had; the momentum and energy were almost contagious. 
 
Both boys’ and girls’ medley relays scored points towards the team total.  The girls’ team of Margaret Luffman, Trudy Zou, Mia Pretorius, and Izzy Lutes placed 10th in a season best time which earned them a spot on the USN all-time top 10 list.  The boys’ team (Clayton Jelsma, Elliott Clark, Henry Standard, and Curtis Patey) finished 13th.
 
After the strong relays, it seemed to take a little while for us to wake up, but our 200 freestylers and 200 IM’ers still all swam best times.  Jessica Mei posted the biggest improvement of the day in the 200 free, dropping four seconds off her previous best, and Abby Liff cut three seconds off her best time in the 200 IM.
 
In the 50 free, we saw great swims from first-time qualifiers Jordan Billups and Ittai Eden.  Jordan dropped 1.5 seconds, and Ittai dropped a full second off his previous best.  Henry Standard and Foster Cook both won their heats in best times as well. 
 
Our first new state qualifying time of the day came from Mia Pretorius, who has expanded her range from being strictly a 50/100 freestyler into a versatile freestyler and stroker.  She dropped three seconds in her 100 fly to squeak under the state qualifying time, finishing in 1:07.32.  In the same event, Margaret Luffman swam a season best time of 1:04.18.
 
The 100 freestyle is where the team really began to come alive.  In the girls’ pool, Tatiana Barbic was our first swim, and she dropped four seconds to win her heat in 1:04.47, posting one of the biggest improvements of the day.  Jessica Mei (1:04.91), Betsy Nolan (1:05.13), Izzy Lutes (1:02.74), Annie French (1:01.97) and Abby Liff (1:00.95) all swam major lifetime bests.  In the boys’ pool, Curtis Patey led the way, earning a new state qualifying time by over a second.  (51.64).  Clayton Jelsma also posted a big drop, improving from 59.1 to 56.3.
 
We had only two 500 freestylers – Katie Watke and Graham Shockley – and both had remarkable performances.  Katie negative split her race, dropping 11 seconds and cracking six minutes for the first time, finishing only .26 off the state qualifying time.  Graham dropped nearly ten seconds
 
Our boys’ 200 free relay finished fifth, our highest finish of the day.  Curtis Patey led off in a best time (23.09), and Henry Standard, Ian Brash, and Josh Twillie posted great splits as well.  Their time of 1:33.83 was good enough for fourth on the USN all-time top 10 list.  The girls’ team of Abby, Izzy, Margaret, and Trudy placed 12th in a season best time, while our girls “B” team of Jessica Mei, Jordan Billups, Tataiana Barbic, and Betsy Nolan all posted best their best individual splits, winning their heat going away.
 
All our 100 backstrokers had season best times, with Mia Pretorius earning her first individual spot on the USN top-10 list, and Puja Jagasia dropping two seconds in her final high school individual race.
 
The 100 breaststroke was the final individual race of the day, and we knew we had a lot riding on this, with multiple state cuts and scoring spots on the line.  It proved to be our best individual race of the day.  In the girls’ pool, first-time region qualifiers Ashleigh Grindon and Francesca Kusserow dropped 4 seconds each.  Annie French swam a courageous race to beat the state qualifying time, and Trudy dropped 1.5 seconds, finishing sixth overall.  Trudy’s time of 1:08.61 moved her to second on the USN top-10 list.  Josh Twillie led the way in the boys’ pool, crushing his seed time and finishing fifth in one of the fastest times in school history.  Elliott Clark and Ian Brash both punched their tickets to the state meet for the first time.
 
The 400 freestyle relays were a great punctuation mark on a great meet.  The girls’ “A” relay (Abby, Margaret, Annie, Mia) finished 12th, with all four posting splits in the 1:01-1:02 range.
 
In the boys’ pool, the “A” relay (Curtis, Ian, Clayton, Josh) finished 9th, just missing out on a podium spot by .04.  Josh Twillie’s outstanding anchor split (49.61) led the way.
 
Wow – what a meet!  The Tigers finished with 94% best times, five new state qualifiers (four of which are first-time qualifiers), and all six of our relays scoring points.  With over 50 schools represented the boys’ team finished 10th overall, while the combined team placed 12th.  The Tigers will bring nine individual qualifiers to the state championship meet in Knoxville next weekend.  We’re excited to build on this strong performance and see how this group does at the biggest, fastest meet of the season.  
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