by Mike Stirling
What a climax to a terrific Tri-Valley swim season. A Hollywood novelist couldn’t have scripted the finale in a more exciting way. After a long swim schedule, eleven Scotty swimmers qualified for the Division I District Swim Meet and made the trip to the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion on the Ohio State University campus last Friday, February 15.
Junior Caroline Holmes qualified in two individual events and, Holmes and teammates Clare Waggle (Sophomore), Larissa Lynch (Sophomore) and Freshman Katya Liber competed in the Girls 200 Yard Medley Relay. In later events, Marissa Sees joined Waggle, Liber and Lynch in the Girls 200 Free Relay followed by Mariah Clark joining the threesome of Waggle, Lynch and Holmes to swim the Girls 400 Free Relay and round out the girls entrees in the District meet.
On the boys side, Tri-Valley was represented in all three relays by the Senior foursome of Eric Allen, Ben Jacoby, Chad Bell and Keegan Bumpus. This team began swimming together as Freshman four years ago and capped off their high school aquatic careers by setting NEW Tri-Valley school records in ALL three relays Friday at the District meet ( Boys 200 Medley Relay, Boys 200 Free Relay as well as the Boys 400 Free Relay). Although not called on to swim, Sophomore Cyrus Dittmar traveled with the team just in case an alternate swimmer was needed.
Noteworthy for the boys, the record for the 200 Medley Relay had been set in 2011 by the team of Kevin Bell, Nathen Winkelmes, Ryan Hetrick and Carter Brown and was bettered by .87 of a second. The new time of 1:49.86 was almost 4 seconds better than their previous best. They were not expecting to break that record.
Back on the blocks for the Boys 200 Free Relay, the quartet of Allen, Jacoby, Bell and Bumpus took aim at the school record for this relay also. They were looking to best the old time of 1:38.16 which was set in 2009. Swimming four terrific legs, the team touched the pad at 1:36.46 to trim 1.5 seconds off the old mark for record number two for the District meet.
Goal number three was the 2003 record of 3:39.00 in the Boys 400 Free Relay. As might be remembered, this team of Allen, Jacoby, Bell and Bumpus erased the 2003 Meter record for this event about 3 weeks ago. They really wanted this one also and had come close (but fell short on two previous occasions). The pressure was on and you can imagine the excitement as everyone watched the scoreboard to see a RECORD SETTING time of 3:33.15, almost 6 seconds faster than the old time set 16 years ago when the new record holders were about 2 years old. Previous record holders were Steve Paisley, Devon Liles, Sam Allen and Ed Rector.
Of special note for the girls, Caroline Holmes had a good meet and swam a 1:56.53 in the Girls 200 Free which was just short of her own Tri-Valley record in the event. Her second event, and her speciality, was the Girls 100 Backstroke where she swam a very impressive 58.25 which placed her in 7th spot in the field of 30 backstrokers. When the results were in from the other District meets, however, Holmes just missed qualifying to move to the next level. Although the girls relays swam well, they were just shy of breaking the Tri-Valley relay records in these events also.
Needless to say, Scotty swimmers did well and represented the team, their school and themselves in an exemplary manner and the excitement of the Senior swimmers (Allen, Jacoby, Bell and Bumpus ) setting three new Tri-Valley relay records in their last high school meet was thrilling and was a perfect cap for the meet, the season and the high school career of these young men.
[ Caption: Tri-Valley Swimmers who represented school at Districts on Fri. Feb 15, 2019. Front Row- Katya Liber, Mariah Clark, Larissa Lynch, Caroline Holmes, Clare Waggle, Marissa Sees, Coach Christi Holmes
Back Row- Coach Susan Bowen, Cyrus Dittmar, Chad Bell, Eric Allen, Benjamin Jacoby, Keegan Bumpus ]
