By RYAN WALKER
The Norwell Knights got the best of the Bluffton Tigers Tuesday night in a Wells County swimming and diving showdown. Both schools’ seniors were honored before the meet.
Even with senior night and swimming against the county rival, the stakes were high on the boys’ side as both were unbeaten in regular season competition.
The Knights got the best of the Tigers and won by a close 99-84.
When asked if winning a meet like that was a little more special than the rest, head coach Stephanie Scott was quick to answer.
“Yes. It’s the rival. They were, at least from our boys, they were excited, but they were probably more nervous than they’d been for other meets because of the rivalry — it’s a friendly rivalry,” she said after the meet.
Bluffton, on the other side, was coming off of an Allen County Athletic Conference championship at Jay County last Friday. With a meet early in the week, it provided head coach Justin Upgraft’s team will a challenge, and they rose up to it.
“I’m proud of ‘em,” he said after the meet. “We had a really good conference meet on Friday. I just told them right now, it’s really hard to sustain that level of swimming, and your bodies are going through what they’re going through, and it’s hard to sustain it. Some guys can sustain it, some guys can’t. It’s just what their bodies are made up of. But what I wanted to see from the guys tonight was that they competed, and they did.”
Scott said that her boys and the Tigers, for the most part, know a lot about one another and chat regularly, checking in on their = meets and times. A meet where both schools are friends created a fun environment to motivate and keep the boys excited when the sectional rolls around.
The sectional this year for both will be at Jay County at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 2, and the meet can be considered a measuring stick. Last season, Norwell won the sectional, and Bluffton was close behind in third place.
Upgraft enjoys swimming against tough schools that are also in the sectional to compare where they’re at and where they need to be.
“It’s always good to see what other teams have, kind of what they’re swimming and what their times are,” he said. “We don’t see everyone in our sectional, so that’s kind of a negative on our schedule, but, at the end of the day, it’s the stopwatch. We’re racing the stopwatch. You could be lining up against somebody you’ve never even heard of before. You still have to beat them. A race is a race.”
Despite Norwell’s win, Scott thinks that her team could have done better, and they have some work to do before the sectional.
“They did O.K.,” she said. “There’s things that we see that we need to keep working on, so we just take note of that and adjust the practices to keep trying to fix all those kinks heading into sectional.”
On the girls’ side, Norwell won 143-40.
Norwell’s final meet of the season will start at 6 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30.
Bluffton will be at Bellmont at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26.
Individual event winners for the Norwell boys were:
• Mikey Reidenbach, Samuel Peterson, Kale Meredith, and Emerson Graft in the 200-yard medley relay.
• Peterson in the 200-yard freestyle.
• Reidenbach in the 50-yard freestyle.
• Peterson in the 100-yard butterfly.
• Reidenbach in the 100-yard freestyle.
• Rodrigo Segovia, Peterson, Graft, and Reidenbach in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
• Lobsiger in the 100-yard backstroke.
• Meredith in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Individual event winners for the Bluffton boys were:
• Isaac Wheeler in the 200-yard IM.
• Austin Davis in the one-meter diving event.
• Wheeler in the 500-yard freestyle.
• Gavin Yergler, Dalton Rodgers, Noah Brooks, and Wheeler in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Individual event winners for the Norwell girls were:
• Rilynn Ervin, Ryleigh Huffman, Sawyer Peterson, and Olivia Daniel in the 200-yard medley relay.
• Emerson Meredith in the 200-yard freestyle.
• Cassie Coyne in the 200-yard IM.
• Renee Fraze in the 50-yard freestyle.
• Meredith in the one-meter diving event.
• Ella Krug in the 100-yard butterfly.
• Jillian Melcher in the 100-yard freestyle.
• Coyne in the 500-yard freestyle.
• Nichole Crawford, Addyson Heyerley, Emma Page, and Huffman in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
• Melcher in the 100-yard backstroke.
• Krug in the 100-yard breaststroke.
• Marlee Wenger, Karrigan Melcher, Huffman, and Page in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
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