Swimming Tigers Demonstrate Strength at State Meet

Justin Karpinos
Girls and Boys' relays earn finals swims; Brash breaks school record in leadoff.

Complete Results 
The USN HS swim team brought 12 swimmers to the TN HS State Championship meet in Knoxville last weekend for the capstone meet of our season.  With over 150 teams and 900 swimmers competing, this represented a big step up in terms of the level of competition compared with our other meets, but we were excited to see how our preparation stacked up on a big stage.

Friday morning's prelims opened with the girls’ 200 medley relay, where the team of Lucy Mauries, Harper Johnston, Caroline Cramer, and Ivy Cochran beat their seed time by over two seconds.  Notably, Lucy’s 50 backstroke split and Harper’s 50 breaststroke split earned spots on the USN all-time top 10 list.

Lauren French and Abby Liff were our first two individual athletes, and both had excellent races in the 200 freestyle to start off the meet.  Both swam lifetime bests; Lauren’s represented an improvement of two seconds, and Abby cracked the two minute barrier, moving up to 6th on the USN all-time top 10 list.

In the 50 freestyle in the boys’ pool, freshman Milo Schumann (DCA) swam a lifetime best of 23.57, and William Grobmyer (23.77) and Stefan Pretorius (22.97) did the same.  Stefan’s swim cracked the all-time Top 10. On the girls’ side, Kursten Griffin and Lucy Mauries had solid races that were just off their seed times

The setbacks for USN on Friday came in the form of two disqualifications.  Those were disappointing but ultimately technical fixes we could make, rather than indictments on our speed.  So we were excited for the possibility of a strong Saturday, where the bulk of our swims would happen.

Saturday morning’s prelims began with the 100 freestyle, where we had five girls and two boys entered..  Lucy led off the morning by breaking the 1:00 barrier for the first time, while Caroline Cramer was just off her previous best. Lauren French added a big drop, breaking into the 57-second range, and Kursten Griffin swam a lifetime best, which moved her up to 6th on the USN all-time Top 10.  In the boys’ pool, William notched a best time, and Ian swam an aggressive race that left him just shy of qualifying for finals.

The boys’ 200 free relay was our breakout event of the meet, and a big confidence booster for everyone.  The team of Ian, Sage, William, and Stefan performed well in one of the fastest heats to qualify 10th for the finals.  Their time of 1:30.67 was about a second shy of the school record. Notably, Ian’s leadoff split of 21.37 broke his own school record in the 50 freestyle.

In the girls’ pool, the 200 free relay of Lauren, Lucy, Abby, and Kursten improved from 25th to 20th, dropping nearly three seconds off their seed time.  They missed qualifying for finals in a very fast event by about a second, but swam fast enough to be the third-fastest relay in USN history (and the fastest relay since 1997!).

Stefan returned to the pool a few minutes later to drop three seconds off his seed in the 100 backstroke, posting a big lifetime best of 56.78 in a very well-split race.  Milo had a huge swim in the 100 breastroke, dropping from 1:04.5 to 1:02.1. Sage and Abby had strong races that were just off their lifetime bests in the same event.

The same boys from the 200 freestyle relay returned for the 400 free relay and were just shy of earning another finals swim.  They finished 18th with a time of 3:25.55, which was a season best by two seconds. Ian’s leadoff 100 and William’s anchor split were both faster than their individual 100 freestyle’s from earlier in the session, which we were particularly proud of.

The girls’ 400 free relay team of Abby, Lauren, Caroline, and Kursten had an outside chance of qualifying, having entered the meet seeded 20th.  They swam an excellent, hard-fought race, with most of them racing for the third time that morning, and finished 15th in 3:47.78, earning another finals swim.

In the evening finals, the boys’ 200 free relay team swam well but was just shy of their prelims swim, finishing 13th in 1:31.20.  Our girls’ team closed out the meet, and the season, by dropping another second to finish in 3:46.51. This earned them the 4th fastest time in school history (and again, the fastest relay since 1997) and held onto their 15th place from prelims.

We are particularly grateful to all our parents who made the trip to support the swimmers, to our transportation department for getting us to and from the meet safely and on time, and to our seniors, Abby and Ian, who led the team throughout the season with their performances, words of encouragement, and leadership by example.

This meet was a was good note to conclude on --- this group battled hard on a big stage and demonstrated a lot of heart, remaining undeterred by setbacks along the way, to finish at their best, just as they were at the Region meet.
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