The Okemos team added another chapter to their rich swimming tradition Saturday with a dominant victory in the CAAC League Meet Championship.  Okemos scored 35 of their 36 entries into the meet en route to what is believed to be a record 580 total points and a 235 point victory over their next closest rival Jackson.  The coaches and swimmers take pride in the difficult workout program at the school and it was nice to see the hard work pay off in a big way when looking at the placings and time drops from this weekend.

 

200 Medley Relay--This event set the tone for the entire meet.  Lauren Dudley, Madison Batchelor, Kylie Holden and Amelia Marsh all recorded the fastest splits in the meet in their respective strokes as well as four personal bests on their way to victory in a High School All-American consideration time of 1:50.06. They also set a new pool and CAAC meet record.(breaking their own record from the prior year by nearly 3 seconds).  Madison finally eclipsed her previous fastest split in the 50 breast from back to her freshman Waverly Relay meet, Lauren outsplit Hannah Larson from Jackson who won the 100 back later in the meet, Amelia bested her tapered 50 free time from last year's state meet relay and Kylie probably turned the most heads of them all with her amazing :26.45 fly split.

 

200 Free--Amelia looked the best she has all year in winning the event in a new pool and CAAC meet record of 1:52.92.  This was her 3rd win in 3 tries in the event at Leagues.  This was a huge point event for the Chiefs as Lydia Roth easily achieved her state cut in route to her 3rd place finish.  Laura Kruger was .01 off the state cut in prelims and missed by just bit again in finals but still managed a strong 4th place finish.  Marie Marsh came into the meet short of the points she needed to letter and in desperate need to earn it by scoring points at the meet.  She did just that by swimming her best time to place 16th.

 

200 IM--Once again Madison broke a personal best time from her freshman year by winning the IM going away with a time of 2:12.31.  This untapered time should set her up well for the state meet in 10 days.  The Chiefs backed up the point truck in this event by qualifying 4 swimmers in finals and 2 in consolations.  Monique Pentecost had one of the best tapers on the team to drop nearly 5 seconds from her prelim time to finish 3rd in a time not too far off the state D2 cut.  Andrea Dantus recorded 2 personal bests to finish 6th.  Kelly Schwaner had a personal best in prelims to qualify for finals where she finished 8th.  Saskia Moyer swam a tough race to win the consolation heat and Nicole Baron scored her first points at a League Championship Meet to place 14th.

 

50 free--Lauren did not have a great start but she was not going to be denied the victory against a Holt competitor as she fought back to win the event by a mere .07 in a personal best winning time of :24.94.  Fellow senior captain Mariya Smith picked up big points for the team by moving all the way up from here 8th place qualiying position to 4th place overall.

 

Diving--Coach Mike Wagner worked his usual magic to outscore the rest of the conference in the 1 meter diving competition.  Carolyn Wallace capped an amazing League Meet career where she never finished worse than 2nd by winning in a convincing fashion by nearly 100 points with her score of 425.6.  Carly Schaffer was our highest scoring freshman with her 5th place finish.  Jenna Lademan moved up to finish 6th and Colleen Simon locked up 10th place.  Carolyn, Carly, and Jenna all move on to diving regionals next Tuesday to try to qualify for states.

 

100 fly--In a loaded butterfly field, Jackson freshman phenom Gabriella Hestwood swam a great race to claim victory in a new pool record time of :59.40.  Gabriella led wire to wire and will be a force for the Jackson team for the next 3 years.  Kylie swam perhaps the best Okemos race of the meet to finish a strong 2nd in 1:00.05.  She dropped nearly a second and half off her previous best time which she swam the day before in the preliminaries.  Lauren had the tables turned on her in finishing 3rd, after defeating both Gabriella and Kylie at a dual meet in Jackson just 2 weeks earlier.  While Jackson placed 3 swimmers in the top 6, Okemos was able to place 5 in the top 9.  Sally Yan and Kelly Schwaner finished 7th and 8th respectively.  Nicole Baron finished 9th with her 2nd strong individual effort of the meet.

 

100 free--Amelia Marsh made the most of Okemos' lone entry in the 100 by winning the event in her 3rd pool record of the day in a time of :52.29.  This time was only .15 off Spartan Swim Club and current MSU swimmer Kelsie Schooley's CAAC record.  Amelia's winning time also set a new Okemos varsity record in the event.

 

500 free--Junior Laura Kruger won her 2nd straight 500 free in a winning time of 5:33.92.  Laura did not get the race she needed to go after the state cut, but she still looked very happy to not only walk away with the win, but also to see her good friend Sally gut out the race and finish 2nd.  Sally swam a smart race to surprise the rest of the field and bring home the silver.  Marie Marsh and Emily Laub swam next to each other and pushed each other for 20 lengths to record best times and finish 13th and 14th overall.  This was Emily's first time scoring at Leagues.

 

200 Free Relay--Amelia Marsh, Lydia Roth, Madison Batchelor and Laura Kruger team up to win this event in 1:42.55.  They were just .8 off the pool record.  All four splits were very respectable.

 

100 back--Jackson's talented sophomore Hannah Larson won the event a 1:00.55.  Captain Lydia Roth swam a good race after just getting out of the relay to finish in a strong second place in state cut time.  Once again, the Okemos depth showed up as Mariya Smith placed 5th, Andrea Dantus placed 7th and Kenzie Krumm placed 12.  Kenzie also earned her letter by scoring in the meet.

 

100 breast--This was our event as the girls went 1,2,3,5 and 14.  Madison "backed up" her times from the Holland/Groves meet with her 1:08.27 winning time.  Kylie qualified for D2 states with her best ever 1:10.5 to take 2nd.  Monique Pentecost continued her great meet by finishing 3rd, also in a personal best time.  Saskia Moyer placed 5th overall and Chloe White made it 2 years in row to score at the League Meet with her 14th place finish to earn another varsity letter.

 

400 free relay--The team of Lauren Dudley, Laura Kruger, Lydia Roth and Kylie Holden won the final event of the night with a respectable time of 3:46.30.  Lydia concludes her league meet career by going a perfect 6 for 6 1st places in relays she swam on.  Kylie and Laura are now 4 for 4.

 

Okemos finished the meet with 10 wins out of the 12 events and the only event Okemos was outscored in was the 100 free where we only entered Amelia who finished first.  Over the past 5 years at least, this was the best overall I've seen the team perform at Leagues.  I really can't think of a bad Okemos swim including the "B" and "C" relays as well as the exhibition swims on Friday.  Head Coach Patrick Saucedo, diving coach Mike Wager and assitants Brent Pohlonski and Julie Kahn did a great job in preparing the team for the meet and ending the season for most all of the girls on a high note.   The Okemos girls team will be sending a small but powerful group to the state meet where they will compete to finish in the top 4 and try to earn a trophy for the school.  Great job at Leagues and good luck at States!