Swimming Tigers Race the Best in Knoxville

Justin Karpinos
Curtis breaks school record in 50 freestyle; boys' 200 freestyle relay, Trudy Zou swim second-fastest times in school history.
Fourteen members of the USN swimming team traveled to Knoxville last week to compete in the TISCA State HS championships.  The meet featured 890 athletes from over 140 teams from public, independent, and homeschool teams.
 
More than anywhere else this season, we were aware of how young our team is.  For over half our state team, this meet represented their first time competing at State, so we didn't know what to expect. 
 
Friday morning was a solid but challenging session for us, with only a few individual swims on the day.
 
Our girls’ medley relay finished 27th to kick off the meet.  Their time of 1:59.78 was just off their Region performance (1:59.46).  Margaret Luffman’s backstroke (30.9) and Izzy Lutes’ freestyle (26.9) were both strong splits.  The boys’ team swam without our fastest two swimmers  but still managed one of the fastest swims of the season (1:53.35) and finished 30th.   Notably, Elliott Clark’s breaststroke split (30.41) was a big drop, and Ian Brash’s freestyle split (24.22) gave us some hope for the 200 freestyle relay on Saturday. 
 
Our Friday morning highlight came from junior Curtis Patey, who broke the school record in the 50 freestyle, winning his heat in 22.20.  This was a big improvement of nearly a second over his previous best.
 
Another strong Friday swim came from Trudy Zou, who swam her HS best in the 100 fly (1:03.18), earning a spot on the USN all-time Top 10 list in this event for the first time.
 
Saturday morning was a much busier, and much stronger session for us.  In the boys’ pool, Curtis Patey and Josh Twillie kicked off the morning with two best times in the 100 freestyle.  Their times of 49.52 and 49.62, respectively, were good enough for 2nd and 3rd on the USN all-time Top 10 list.
 
Graham Shockley followed this up with a strong 500 freestyle performance that equaled his huge drop from the Region meet two weeks ago.  In the girls’ pool, Katie Watke couldn’t quite equal her best time in the 500 freestyle but was remarkably consistent in her splits in this new race for her.
 
The girls’ 200 freestyle relay – Abby Liff, Trudy, Mia Pretorius, and Izzy - -swam a season best that was just shy of the USN all-time Top 10.  Their time of 1:48.80 was a full second faster than their Region meet performance.
 
Almost simultaneously, the boys’ 200 free relay was diving in.  This was our best chance of swimming in finals, and Curtis, Ian, Henry Standard, and Josh made the most of this moment, winning their heat going away and qualifying 15th.  Their time of 1:31.64 was a season best by two seconds.  Notably, Ian and Henry both broke 24 for the first time, splitting 23.8 and 23.9, respectively.  Those splits, along with Curtis’ 22.3 leadoff and Josh’s blazing 21.6 anchor, were good enough for the second-fastest time in school history.
 
The 100 breaststrokes followed and did not disappoint at all.  Elliott Clark kicked off the event by winning heat 1 in a huge best time, dropping from 1:09.0 to 1:06.8, which earned him his first spot on the USN all-time Top 10 list.  Ian, racing shortly after the 200 free relay, swam a best time of 1:08.4.  In the girls’ pool, Annie French had a very good swim, finishing in 1:17.5, just off her best. 
 
Trudy’s 100 breast was our final individual swim of the meet.  She was seeded 20th, right outside the bubble of scoring.  Trudy made the most of this opportunity, dropping half a second off her previous best to finish in 1:08.21, which made her the second-fastest breaststroker in school history (behind only Elena Escalas ’15).  When the last circle-seeded heats were completed, Trudy finished 17th, just .07 out of qualifying for finals.  Still, this was the fifth consecutive lifetime best Trudy has swum in this event and a wonderfully gutsy race.
 
The 400 freestyle relays closed out the morning prelims session.  The girls’ team of Abby, Margaret, Annie, and Mia swam a season best time of 4:05.9, dropping nearly two seconds from their Region meet performance.  The boys’ team of Curtis, Henry, Clayton Jelsma, and Josh followed with a six second improvement of their own.  Their time of 3:28.6 was good enough to be 17th and first alternate, which was a huge surprise on our part.  Curtis and Clayton, whose previous bests were in the 58-59 second range, both swam 54’s!
 
In Saturday night’s finals, the boys’ 200 free relay dropped another half second to 1:31.16 and improved to 14th.  Curtis’ leadoff split was identical to his morning swim (22.30), and Ian (24.23), Henry (23.07), and Josh (21.56) followed to close out our season.
 
Congratulations to our all our State swimmers!  This meet was a perfect capstone to our season – full of tests, uncertainty and tremendous growth in big moments.  We are proud of how our young team has risen to the challenge of performing on a big stage in an electric environment. We’re energized by how we can use this experience to build for next year and beyond.  Thank you to all our parents, faculty, and administration for all their support during this season, which brought us far more excitement than we could have anticipated
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