By RYAN WALKER
Bluffton and Norwell’s girls’ swim and diving teams competed at the sectional meet at Jay County High School Saturday afternoon.
Norwell, who had a team score of 383, fell just short of back-to-back championships, falling to Delta, who scored 398. Bluffton took ninth with a 93 score.
Even though the Knights were disappointed in the result, they gave the Eagles their best shot as most of the swimmers beat their personal best times.
“I’m extremely happy with the way they performed today,” Norwell head coach Stephanie Scott said after the meet. “We had a lot more personal bests, even coming out of Thursday having a lot of personal best times. They came out this morning all excited and full of energy — I think they did really well.”
Last season, Norwell edged out Delta by just over 100 points in the sectional. Since then, a combination of a few Knight graduates and a building of an up-and-coming Eagles group has significantly closed and overcome the gap.
When the preliminary heat sheets came out, Norwell saw that Delta was projected to win the sectional based on the times on the sheet. After an all-out effort, though, in the preliminary races, Norwell found new hope and even believed it could make a comeback.
Despite falling a mere 15 points short, Scott’s group is already using the feeling of the loss to motivate for next season.
“They are. They’re bummed,” she said when asked if there was any disappointment from the team. “We knew coming in that we were going to be down. After Thursday, they got pretty hyped up because they pulled even closer than what we originally were planning on being down. So, they’re disappointed, but I will have almost all of them back next year, so they’ve already started taking what they saw today that they need to work on, and we talked about next year — we’re going to start from where we left off.”
Next year’s Norwell squad could be a dangerous one as it graduates just two seniors.
The good news for Norwell is that the season isn’t over for five swimmers in two events. The 200-yard medley relay team of juniors Jillian Melcher, Haleigh Reinhard, Ella Krug, and sophomore Emerson Meredith, and also 200-yard freestyle senior Emma Page, placed first at the sectional. They will be moving on to the state finals at IUPUI at the Indiana University Natatorium in Indianapolis next week.
To make it to the state finals, the team or individual must place first at the sectional or make the pre-set cut time. Both groups, in this case, won first in the sectional to advance.
The state final preliminary races will start at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, and the finals and consolation races will start at 1 p.m. the following day.
On the other hand, Bluffton’s ninth-place team finish was one higher than last year as the Tigers edged out Blackford, Union City, and Muncie Burris. According to head coach Hunter Cunningham, most of the team also had personal best times break on Saturday.
“Very excited for us to end it this way,” she said after the meet. “Most of the girls dropped time from Thursday, so that was exciting. My seniors swam so well, so they’re going out with a good finish. In my eyes, that’s important to them just because it’s their final race of the year.”
Three seniors, Lydia Athan, Annika Linderwell, and Olivia Priester, wrapped up their high school careers. Priester and Linderwell led the highest-place event for the Tigersharks placing seventh in the 200-yard freestyle relay, along with Emma Frauhiger and Lucia Corkwell.
Bluffton has come a long way since Christmas break, where Cunningham says the team peaked a little bit too early. Most of the group was swimming at their best at that time, and that might have been the reason some of them did not end up on Saturday’s finals race sheet. She said that next year, she wants to see more of those names on there, especially with the experience.
“I think the biggest thing is having more in the top-16 — I think any team, that’s all of our girls, is to get all of our girls here. I’ll say this, we had less than we were predicted to this year, so I think next year, just coming back, we’ll have a very young team, so they don’t really know what prelims is like and what sectionals is like. So now, they kind of know that it’s all on the line Thursday night to make it to Saturday. I hope that next year we can have that competitiveness coming in and hopefully having more girls in that top-eight spot.”
Top finishers for Norwell were:
• Ella Krug, Haleigh Reinhard, Jillian Melcher, and Emerson Meredith were first in the 200-yard medley relay.
• Ella Krug second in the 200-yard IM.
• Melcher second, Renee Fraze seventh in the 50-yard freestyle.
• Emma Page first in the 200-yard freestyle.
• Cassie Coyne fourth in the 200-yard freestyle.
• Krug fourth in the 100-yard butterfly.
• Meredith third, Fraze seventh in the 100-yard freestyle.
• Page second, Coyne third in the 500-yard freestyle.
• Reinhard fifth in the 100-yard breaststroke.
• Meredith fifth, Kayleigh Hartup eighth in the diving events.
• Melcher second, Rilynn Ervin sixth in the 100-yard backstroke.
• Sawyer Peterson, Page, Coyne, and Fraze fourth in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
• Page, Meredith, Melcher, and Krug second in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Top finishers for Bluffton were:
• Lydia Athan, Libby Arnett, Kiara Sammons, and Claire Craighead placed ninth in the 200-yard medley relay.
• Annika Linderwell placed 13th in the 200-yard freestyle.
• Olivia Priester placed 16th in the 200-yard IM and 12th in the in the 100-yard butterfly.
• Zoey Schmidt placed eighth, Linderwell 10th in the 500-yard freestyle.
• Preister, Linderwell, Corkwell, and Fraigher seventh in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
• Libby Arnett 12th in the 100-yard breaststroke.
• Priester, Linderwell, Schmidt, and Frauigher ninth in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
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