Thursday was senior night for Anderson’s swim seniors as they took to the pool for the final time at home against Lapel.
It was a chance for the Indians seniors to celebrate with family and their lifelong friends and teammates, while the Lapel seniors could look back on how far the program had come in just four short years.
In the pool, the Madison County champion girls team for Lapel flexed their muscle behind four wins from junior Lilly Jacobs for a 117-50 victory while Anderson’s all-senior relay teams helped pace the Indians boys to a 114-56 win as the schools split the dual.
Earlier in the week, the Anderson girls showed improvement by beating an Elwood team that had edged the Indians at the Madison County meet earlier in the season. Thursday, it was the boys turn to earn some payback after the Bulldogs had edged Anderson at county.
Those results showed the improvement that coach Mindi Richardson is looking for, especially with the postseason looming in the weeks ahead.
“That was the first meet of the season for the boys and for a lot of our swimmers,” she said of the county meet back in late November. “We had some disqualifications in three different events that really hurt us, but we’ve shored all that up.”
The Lapel girls won 10 of the 12 events with Jacobs taking first individually in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke and swimming the anchor legs of the 200-yard medley and 200-yard freestyle relays.
Jacobs was the lone Bulldog swimmer to qualify for the ‘A’ final at sectional last year and did so in the breaststroke. Lapel coach Taylor Puckett recognizes that, while the sprint race is the strongest for Jacobs, her best chance of postseason advancement may come again in the breaststroke after she edged teammate Emma Cofer by two seconds Thursday.
“We were just talking tonight about the freestyle sprints are so competitive at sectional, those are almost impossible to get into the top eight,” Puckett said. “We’re just hoping for big time drops, top eight is definitely (Jacobs’s) goal for the 100 breaststroke.”
Anderson, meanwhile, swept all 11 events – neither boys team had a diver – as seniors Kameron King, Jayvin Campbell, Zach Skinner and Kaleb Dean teamed up to take the 200-yard and 400-yard freestyle relay races.
Dean said the quartet, which was county champions in the 400-yard freestyle, is a close-knit group that enjoys time together both in and out of the pool.
“We’ve had pretty much the same relay group the last two years,” Dean said. “It’s really cool to be with the same guys meet after meet after meet. We’ve gotten our times down, we know what we need from each other, and we can provide for it.”
Anderson secured girls wins from diver Lola Frazier and from Emmely Rangel, Kendra Henderson, Lilly West, and senior Cinthya Lopez in the meet’s final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay.
The rest of the girls half of the dual belonged to the Bulldogs.
After Jacobs teamed up with Katie Stephenson, Emma Cofer and Elle Contos to open the meet with the 200-yard medley relay win, Contos came right back to win the 200-yard freestyle – by a whopping 27 seconds. Contos later added a victory in the 100-yard freestyle while Stephenson won the 100-yard backstroke, and Cofer earned an individual victory in the 200-yard individual medley.
Teagan O’Keefe won the 100-yard butterfly while Bella Settlemire took the 500-yard freestyle and teamed up with Contos, Stephenson and Jacobs on the 200-yard freestyle relay win.
Stephenson was one of seven total swimmers when Lapel began their high school team four years ago and, as one of five seniors on this year’s team, has enjoyed watching the growth of the team to over 30 members this season.
“It’s been incredible,” she said. “The team and the leadership stepping has really improved over the last couple years. Our growth has just been incredible and I just love all my teammates.”
For the Anderson boys, Franky Tejeda, Liam Innes, Campbell, and Bao Tran opened the evening with a win in the 200-yard medley relay.
Skinner also took individual blue ribbons in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly while Innes won the 200-yard individual medley and 100-yard breaststroke races, Dean won the 50-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle and King was first in the 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke.
“I’m going to really miss that group,” Richardson said of her seniors. “They are really good swimmers, but they’ve also brought a lot of leadership to our younger swimmers.”
This article appeared in The Herald Bulletin.