Billed as the D2 regular season meet of the year, the meet lived up to expectations as none of the three teams gave an inch.  As expected, Holland's strength at the top proved to be the difference as the Dutch won 7 of the 12 events but  perhaps their final margin of victory was much closer than expected.  The nailbiting battle was to see who would come out on top between Groves and Okemos and fittingly it was not decided until the final event of the day.  Coach Patrick Saucedo wanted to provide us the opportunity to win at the end and that he did. Heading into the 400 Free Relay Okemos needed our "A" relay to win the event and our "B" relay to beat the Groves "B" relay.  The "B" relay team of Mariya Smith, Kelly Schwaner, Monique Pentecost and Sally Yan swam "lights out" to do their job and beat both the Groves and Holland "B" relays.   So now it all came down to whether the "A" relay team of Lydia Roth, Lauren Dudley, Madison Batchelor and Amelia Marsh could knock off the the the defending state champion Holland relay for the victory.  Our girls gave it everything they had in recording the 2nd fastest time in Okemos history with a 3:38.83, but the time was just shy of beating the tough Holland foursome who finished at 3:38.01, which in turn handed Groves the 2nd place meet finish.

 

The meet featured 30 state cuts!  The meet was held at the MSU college pool which added to the excitement of the competition.  There was a good sized crowd on hand to cheer on all three teams and at times the noise levels were deafening.

 

Okemos won 3 of the events and finished 2nd in 5 others.  Amelia Marsh won the 50 free over 3 girls who all finished in the top 11 at last years state meet.  The 200 Free Relay team of Amelia Marsh, Kylie Holden, Madison Batchelor and Lauren Dudley brought the house down by beating a Holland team led by swimmer of the year Emily Bos.  Amelia kept within striking distance of Emily on the leadoff swim and Kylie and Madison reeled in their Holland counterparts bit by bit.  Lauren anchored

after just getting out of the pool after the 500 one heat before.  The morning practice work on starts paid off as Lauren nailed both her start and turn to run down the Holland anchor and got those long arms to the wall less than a tenth of a second ahead of the competition.  All 4 coaches were so entirely caught up in the race that none of them recorded any splits but needless to say they were outstanding.  Finally, in the best individual race of the day Madison Batchelor beat a girl from Holland who had beaten her earlier in the IM and who also happens to have a couple National level times to her credit.  Maddy outswam the girl but lost ground on the turns.  The last length was pure guts as Madison swam to victory in the closest possible margin of victory allowed in swimming(.01 second) to secure the victory in front of the screaming crowd. Madison earns Okemos swimmer of the meet with her performance in the breaststroke as well as her contributions on both free relays.

 

Important second place finishes and state meet cuts were secured by Lauren Dudley in the 200 and 500 freestyle, Amelia Marsh in the 100 freestyle, the above mentioned 400 free relay team and Carolyn Wallace in diving.  Carolyn was only 1.6 points behind the winner in an event that could easily have gone either way.  Carly finished in 5th, also losing out on a close diving battle for 4th by just 5 points.    Other key swims for the Chiefs came from Monique Pentecost in the IM beating her Groves counterpart, Sally taking 5th in the fly, Kylie scoring 3rd place points in the 500 by swimming a great 2nd half of her race,  Brent's group of young 500 swimmers--especially Chelsea Kelley who dropped 40 seconds in the exhibition heat off her previous best and once again that terrific "B" 400 free relay.

 

You won't find many better coached or classier programs than Birmingham Groves or Holland High.  This meet has been a highlight for all 3 schools the past several years and plans are underway to continue the meet into the future.  Are the girls disappointed they failed to beat Groves?  No question.  There were at least half a dozen places where we could have picked up the mere 2 points we needed, but in the end, the lineup was solid and it came down to the final event to decide the meet where we came up short by the slimmest of margins.  The good news is we have almost 2 months until the state meet so the coaches can put the girls back to work and take another shot at these two teams and the other top teams at the state meet.  All and all an excellent mid season meet for everyone involved.