Tri-Valley Swimmers Out Point Competitors at Five-Team Meet

Tri-Valley swimmers hosted five area aquatic teams at the MRC in Zanesville, Ohio on Wednesday, December 5. Represented were high schools from Lakewood, Licking Valley, Newark, Northridge and Teays Valley. For scoring purposes, each team competed against each other as if there had been five individual meets all run at the same time.

Scotty swimmers performed very well and, as the final results were tallied, out pointed all five competitors by significant amounts. In addition to the overall win (boys and girls combined scores), both the girls squad and the boys team scored wins individually. In all it was a very satisfying outing.

Sophomore Larissa Lynch began the scoring for the girls with a convincing win in the Girls 200 Yard Freestyle. She was joined by teammates Caitlynn Wriston and Allie Norman. Lynch returned later in the meet to notch second place in the 500 Free with Marissa Sees finishing 4th and Star Jacobs coming in 5th.

Senior Bruno Ascariz and Brady Jacobs-Bell finished 1st and 2nd in the Boys 200 Free followed by Mason McDaniel. Jacobs-Bell returned to finish 2nd in the Boys 500 Free followed by Will Kline in 3rd and Blaine Cox in 6th.

Caroline Holmes had another productive meet as she won the Girls 200 Yard IM as well as the 100 Yard Butterfly. Clare Waggle and Katya Liber both turned in strong performances in the IM as did Liber and Emma Robinson in the Butterfly event. On the boys side, Seniors Keegan Bumpus, Ben Jacoby and Will Kline came in 1st, 2nd and 6th to dominate the Boys 200 Yard IM while the Senior trio of Ascariz, Eric Allen and Jacoby captured 1st, 2nd and 5th in the Boys !00 Yard Butterfly.

Freestyle events saw more domination on the part of the Scotties. The Boys 50 Free finished with Chad Bell in 2nd place followed be Mikal Blackstone and Jacob Merry. Marissa Sees finished 4th in the 50 Free for the girls followed by Star Jacobs and Kayley Harper. In the 100 Free, Bumpus touched in 1st place for the Scotty boys followed by Blackstone and Nathan Sauerbrey. On the girls side, Mariah Clark and Seryna Mann finished 4th and 5th followed by Harper and Macey Felumlee.

Clare Waggle was not finished yet as she came back to finish 2nd in the Girls 100 Yard Backstroke with a new best time in that event. Wriston and Norman joined Waggle in turning in good performances in the Backstroke. Sauerbrey took the top Tri-Valley spot in the Boys 100 Back followed be teammates Sean Lacy, Jacob Merry and Eric Allen.

Senior Chad Bell continued the Scotty impressive swims as he captured 1st in the Boys 100 Yard Breaststroke with a new personal best in that event. Bell was joined by teammates Cyrus Dittmar and Mason McDaniel. For the girls, Seryna Mann, Clark and Robinson represented the Lady Scotties.

In separate Junior Varsity races, Eve Davis finished 1st in the Girls 50 Free followed by Laine Welker (3rd) and Rhiannon Shaw. Cyrus Dittmar, Sean, Lacy Carter, Cornett and Tracy Beale represented the Dawgs. Of note, Davis, Welker and Felumlee finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the special Girls 100 Yard Backstroke event for Junior Varsity.

Both 200 Yard Medley Relay races were exciting as usual. The girls squad of Lynch, Waggle, Holmes and Sees won 1st place by over 3 seconds while the second Lady Scotty team of Liber, Jacobs, Clark and Norman easily took the number 3 spot. In a very close race the boys team of Blackstone, Bell, Bumpus and Jacoby captured 1st in their 200 IM Relay by .29 of a second. The second boys entry of Sauerbrey, Lacy, Merry and Cox finished in the 6th spot.

Nearing the conclusion of the evenings events, the Tri-Valley girls sent Clark, Mann, Liber and Waggle to the starting blocks in the Girls 200 Free Relay where they edged out the team from Teays Valley by .97 of a second to garner 1st place. The team of Harper, Norman, Robinson and Wriston finished 5th and a third team of Welker, Felumlee, Shaw and Davis came in 6th. For the boys in their 200 Free Relay, the squad of Seniors Bumpus, Kline, Ascariz and Allen easily captured 1st by nearly 3 seconds while teammates Brady-Bell, Merry, McDaniel and Blackstone finished 3rd and a third team of Scotties consisting of Dittmar, Beale, Cornett and Lacy rounded out the field.

In the longest relay of the meet, Tri-Valley girls were represented by Lynch, Mann, Sees and Holmes who combined for another 1st place finish for the Scotties by 14 seconds. They were followed by teammates Harper, Robinson, Wriston and Jacobs and the team of Davis, Shaw, Welker and Felumlee.

To cap the evening, the boys who are chasing a school record, sent the team of Jacoby, Ascariz, Allen and Bell to the starting blocks where they out swam the relay from Teays Valley by about 2.5 seconds to take the 1st spot. They were followed by teammates McDaniel, Sauerbrey, Kline and Jacobs-Bell who finished in 4th place as well as by the relay of Cox, Beale, Cornett and Dittmar to round out the event.

Coach Holmes was pleased with the overall effort of the team and felt that the meet was a great tune-up for the Ned Reeb Invitational on Saturday.