As Brooke High School has hosted the OVAC Swimming Championships for quite a time now, they had reason to be even more proud this year. They were able to show the Ohio Valley the renovations they made to their natatorium. Athletic Director Sean Blumette was happy to tell me of the updates to their venue. It started with replacing the old tile flooring by painting around the pool with some very nice green, gold, and white fleck paint. Along with this the starting blocks were also replaced this season. Another update was to their pump system. These combined with the fact that it was already a great place to watch a swim made this years experience even better.
There was something else new to the OVAC Swimming Championships this year. For the first time in its history, they split the event between the classes of the OVAC. This allowed the facility to accommodate the growing number of swimmers that are competing in the event. Last year it was an overflow crowd Friday night was the 1A-4A competition, leaving Saturday for 5A, at Brooke High school, so much so that they streamed the event in the hallway for the fans that didn’t get a seat in the arena. We will recap both days in separate articles. This article is for the 1A-4A competition.
There is no better way to start an event like this than to do it with a relay. The crowd is into it, the coaches are into it, and the other athletes are into it. It just seems to get everyone pumped up for the rest of the meet. The Linsly girls opened the Championships with a win in the 200 yard medley relay, the team of Bea Fauro, Sarah Coha, Liv Torner, and Julia Sales touched the wall in a time of 1:58.12. They did this in beating second place St. Clairsville by almost 8 seconds. The boys race ended much closer with the Linsly grouping of Parker Griffith, John Papadimitriou, Antonio Navarro, and Mariano Fonseca narrowly defeating St. Clairsville by just under 1 second.
The Linsly girls kept up their winning ways with Berta Roca winning the 200 yard freestyle (2:06.46) with teammate Julia Sales finishing second. Not to be outdone the Linsly boys backed up their event 1 win with another in the 200 yard freestyle with a 1:55.52. Liv Torner continued Linsly’s winning ways with a victory in the 200 yard IM. Martins Ferry broke into the win column when John Consort won the 200 yard IM (2:04.37). The 50 yard freestyle was a 4th in a row for the Linsly girls, Anna Norman won over the field in 25.41 seconds.
After the awards break, Linsly won yet another event in the 100 yard butterfly, which was won by senior Liv Torner in 1:04.89. Evan Yost gained a victory for the St. Clairsville boys in the 100 yard butterfly with a scorching time of 52.78. Anna Norman continued the winning ways for the Linsly girls with a 56.23 time in the 100 yard freestyle. The St. Clairsville boys thought they’d follow the Linsly girls winning ways with a victory in the 100 yard freestyle, with Zach May’s 49.66.
The next race of the meet is not for the weak, it’s the 500 yard freestyle, where the participants teammates get involved. The swimmer’s teammates hold lap markers in the pool to indicate the laps for the swimmers. Linsly picked up another victory with Berta Roca finishing the marathon swim in 5:44.13. Antonio Navarro picked up another victory for the Linsly boys in the 500 yard freestyle (5:13.14).
With another relay event comes another win for the Linsly girls with the team of Roca, Coha, Sales, and Norman completing the 200 freestyle relay with a 1:48.06. The Linsly boys would follow up their girls with a win in the event as well when Papadimitriou, Colby Gibbons, Mariano Fonseca, and Navarro completed the relay in 1:36.39.
Wheeling Central’s Smilee Humpe broke Linsly’s winning streak with a win in the 100 yard backstroke in 1:11.87 barely beating out Wheeling Central’s Abie Riedel by .11. The boys 100 yard breaststroke saw Martins Ferry’s John Consort bring home the victory (1:02.78).
The final event of the evening was the 400 yard freestyle relay. To no surprise the Linsly School girls came up with the victory in this one with the team of Torner, Roca, Fauro, and Norman getting to the wall in 3:49.56. The boys turn was next and the last exhibition of the night, the St. Clairsville Red Devils boys picked up the win. The team of Yost, Luke Stack, Brady Blacker, and Zack May completed the race in 3:35.63. This put a wrap on the 1A-4A OVAC Swimming Championships, the team winners follow:
Girls
1A-3A
1. Linsly 393
2. Martins Ferry 162
4A
1. St. Clairsville 199
2. Indian Creek 101
Boys
1A-3A
1. Linsly 249
2. Wheeling Central 106
4A
1. St. Clairsville 220
2. Indian Creek 198
The change to separate the Championships into to two days worked out well for everyone involved, especially the fans. It seems like it’s a change that’s here to stay. As much fun as I had at the event, it was not difficult to pick my favorite moment. Two of my former students who now go to Linsly, came up to me at the end of the meet to talk and catch up. Thanks to Elle Ranney and Whitney Haught for taking some time to talk after the meet, good luck to you and a speedy recovery to Whitney.
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