After placing well in regionals with Morgantown’s girls team placing first and the boys placing fourth, thirteen total swimmers (8 girls, 5 boys) stepped onto the starting block on Thursday hoping to qualify for Friday’s finals.
On the girls side, MHS had swimmers qualify for state finals in 9 out of 11 possible events, listed below:
- 200-yard medley relay (made up of sophomore Delaney Householder, junior Caroline Riggs, and seniors Katelyn Blosser and Irina Stanescu)
- 200-yard freestyle: Caroline Riggs and sophomore Lillian Linscheid
- 200-yard IM: Delaney Householder
- 50-yard freestyle: Irina Stanescu
- 100-yard butterfly: Katelyn Blosser
- 100-yard freestyle: Irina Stanescu
- 500-yard freestyle: Delaney Householder, Katelyn Blosser, Lillian Linscheid
- 100-yard breaststroke: Caroline Riggs
- 400-yard freestyle relay (made up of sophomore Delaney Householder, junior Caroline Riggs, and seniors Katelyn Blosser and Irina Stanescu)
Girls’ finals will begin at 9:30am Friday at Mylan Aquatic Center.
The boys turn came in the evening session. The first event would be the medley relay with MHS sending senior Preston Householder, and juniors Carter Redelman, Lake Embrey, and Caleb Seol into the pool. The foursome would post a time of 1:48.22, which is an improvement from their regional time of 1:52.00. Their time would put them in 7th place in the preliminaries, and with only the top 6 finishers in all races going through to the title races, the Mohigans would have to settle for the B finals, but not without seeing themselves improve by almost five seconds.
Embrey would be the first swimmer for MHS to compete individually, despite not qualifying for the title race, Embrey improved his regional time and finished 10th in prelims with a time of 1:57.79, securing his spot in the consolation race tomorrow.
The improvement theme continued on with Preston Householder competing in the 200-yard individual medley, a race in which all four swimming strokes are done. Householder reached for the wall as he finished, turned and looked at his time, and pumped his fists toward the MHS section of the crowd at Mylan Aquatic Center. 2:09.24 was a 4.24 second faster time than his regional and despite his time only being good enough for eighth in the final prelim standings, he couldn’t be more happy with the result.
“I’m just really happy,” the MHS senior said. “I had some issues this year during the beginning of my club season and it felt like the world was out to get me. It felt like every time something got better I would get hurt or injured or something. Towards the end however, not too many things were going on and I’m just really happy.”
Carter Redelman was up next in the 100-yard butterfly and yet again, a regional time was bested, this time with Redelman posting 55.02, good enough to secure fourth overall and a spot in the state title race. He also qualified for the championshipn final in the 100-yard backstroke.
In the 500-yard freestyle, Embrey and Householder would each compete but in separate heats. Householder finished with a time of 5:06.82, almost ten seconds better than his qualifying time of 5:15.95. His teammate Embrey would post a time of 5:23.67 in the second heat to secure himself the sixth and final spot in the title heat. This will be the only race for the boys team that will involve two of their swimmers competing in the same race as opponents.
“Going against my teammates definitely gives me a little more of an edge and also has a little playful side to it, I always want to get them,” Householder said when asked about having his teammate swimming against him.
The boys’ finals will begin at 4:45pm Friday at Mylan Aquatic Center.
