By RYAN WALKER
Tuesday night began rivalry week as Bluffton and Norwell went head-to-head in the swimming pool.
The Knights are visiting the Tigers in middle school basketball, swimming and boys’ basketball this week
The two swim teams earned a draw as the Bluffton boys won 125-58 and the Norwell girls won 140-37.
In his tenure at Bluffton, head coach Justin Upgraft has never beaten the school he graduated from. He admitted the nerves were there before the meet and was pleased with the result to say the least.
“It’s kind of like a monkey has been taken off our back,” Upgraft said.
On the girls’ side, Norwell’s large margin of victory was perhaps expected due to a lack of numbers for the Tigersharks and the Knights having a lot of depth. Therefore, the focus on the meet was different for them.
“Really, their focus is not necessarily Bluffton — it’s Delta,” Norwell head coach Stephanie Scott said standing right next to Upgraft during the same interview. “Their focus is on Delta. Just that small loss last year. That’s their goal.”
“You know, right now our focus was obviously Norwell,” Upgraft said with a smirk on his face, looking at Scott. “For multiple reasons. You want to talk about the history and always coming up one relay short or one event short. And that’s kind of been our thing and then to come out performance that they did tonight speaks a lot.”
The two coaches represent the relationship between the two Wells County programs. Upgraft’s swimmers compete over the summer for the Wells County Swim Team, coached by Scott.
Because of the summer program, the kids are on the same team to defeat area counties. The athletes talk with the opposing school when they go against each other in what the coaches call one big family.
The teams that won tonight have the same goals in mind for their respective seasons. Both want to win the ACAC and NE8 Conferences and win the sectional.
Upgraft’s group took the meet Tuesday night into a stepping stone to their goals.
“They want to have bragging rights for a whole year that’s in the county. And then I think of it more as though (Norwell’s) the epitome of what a sectional championship team should look like — they’ve won over the last few years,” Upgraft said. “To beat those kinds of teams, we need to beat those teams and it started here tonight. It’s a really good first step. It’s not the end product.”
Scott’s girls have a bad taste in their mouths falling by a few points in the sectional to Delta. The team is much stronger this year, returning virtually the entire cast from last year and adding more numbers as well. The girls are constantly working in practice and at meets to make the top spot in their event, and that competition has made them better.
“They’re fighting for spots. We have a lot of depth on our team,” Scott said. “And a lot of competition they do and they know they’re competing against each other, but yet, they’re pushing each other in a good way and supporting each other and building each other up. Which is, as a coach, that’s what we want to see. We don’t want to tear them apart.”
Bluffton won’t have a meet until the new year when they head to South Adams at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 4.
Norwell will be at Angola at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 21.
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Individual winners:
Boys
• Elija Robles (B) in diving.
• Noah Brooks, Dalton Rodgers, Robles and Isaac Wheeler (B) in the 200-meter medley relay.
• Rylan Heyerly (N) in the 200-meter freestyle.
• Wheeler (B) in the 200-meter IM and in the 100-meter butterfly.
• Rodgers (B) in the 50-meter freestyle.
• Brooks in the 100-meter freestyle and in the 100-meter backstroke.
• Griffin Linderwell (B) in the 400-meter freestyle.
• Ashton Arnett, Linderwell, Wes Frettinger and Robles (B) in the 200-meter freestyle relay.
• Kale Meredith (N) in the 100-meter breaststroke.
• Rodgers, Arnett, Wheeler and Brooks in the 400-meter freestyle relay.
Girls
• Emerson Meredith (N) in diving and in the 100-meter butterfly.
• Jillian Melcher, Ella Krug, Haleigh Reinhard and Renee Fraze (N) in the 200-meter medley relay.
• Cassie Coyne (N) in the 200-meter freestyle and in the 400-meter freestyle.
• Marlee Meredith (N) in the 200-meter IM and in the 100-meter backstroke.
• Melcher (N) in the 50-meter freestyle.
• Karrigan Melcher (N) in the 100-meter freestyle.
• Olivia Daniel, Ryleigh Huffman, Addyson Heyerly and Emerson Meredith (N) in the 200-meter freestyle relay.
• Ellie Coyne (B) in the 100-meter breaststroke.
• Krug, Heyerly, Coyne and Jillian Melcher (N) in the 400-meter freestyle relay.
