GREENFIELD — It was the first of multiple times both Greenfield-Central and New Palestine swimmers and divers would compete in the same pool, both schools left with a team win.
On Tuesday night at Greenfield-Central, the G-C girls swept all 12 events to win by a score of 137-49, while the New Palestine boys won eight events to win 107-73.
The teams meet again at the Hoosier Heritage Conference Championships and the New Palestine Sectional, both at the New Palestine Natatorium.
“The most promising thing to me is they’ve been working really hard. I’ve been hammering them at practice and they still come out and perform at high, high levels,” Greenfield-Central girls head coach Emily Logan said. “We’ve already got our eyes set on some big goals as we look towards the rest of the season.”
For the Greenfield-Central girls, it was the usual suspects grabbing first-place finishes, but in different events than normal.
Early in the season, the Cougars used Tuesday night as what they call an “off-event night.” It was a chance to have some fun and allow people to compete in other events than their typical races.
“We swam what we call off-events, and let them pick what they wanted to swim so they can have a little fun, but also get in some good racing in some other events,” Logan said. “We’re trying to make our kids well-rounded athletes as far as the different events go. It’s nice to be able to plug in here and there and still have a great night.”
Six different Cougars swimmers won individual events.
Selah Vahle and Alyssa Osborn led the way with two individual wins each. Vahle grabbed first in the 500-yard freestyle and the 100 backstroke, while Osborn took first in both the 50 and 100-yard freestyle races.
Katie Jennings won the 200 free, Taylor Parsons was first in the 200 individual medley, Cecilia Johnson won the 100 butterfly, and Sonja Jahrsdoerfer took the top spot in the 100 backstroke.
Rachel Stutz was a member of three winning relay teams. Along with her, Johnson, Osborn, and Vahle were the top team in both the 200 and 400 freestyle relays and she joined Parsons, Johnson, and Kaylie Butler to win the 200 medley relay.
Kersey Hudson won the girls 1-meter diving event with a score of 177.25.
“This might be the most talented team that we’ve ever had. We’ve got some rockstars as you would call them, and we’ve got depth. The freshman class that we added just added so much in terms of versatility and depth to the great swimmers that we already had,” Logan said. “It’s unbelievable to look at the lineup and be like, ‘what can we do tonight?’ I let them pick, we threw it together, and it was an incredible evening.”
For the Dragons Chloe Siler had the top individual finish with a second place in the 50 free. She was less than a second off of Osborn’s first-place time of 25.45 seconds.
The team of Rachel Hamilton, Lillie Abernathy, Sullie Leavell, and Adrianna Huston were runner-up in the 200 medley relay. Siler joined Leavell, Abernathy, and Hutson to finish second in the 200 free relay.
“I think they looked great. They’re working really hard in the pool and the weight room and they’re getting the times that we expected,” New Palestine head coach Chris Kingery said. “They’re just doing a great job all around so far.”
On the boys side, the Dragons opened the night winning the first four events.
Dawson Lynch, Aidan Kingery, Jake Myers, and Liam Fuller won the 200 medley relay, James Watson grabbed first in the 200 free, Reese Cox won the 200 IM, and Lynch won the 50 free.
The Cougars responded with four straight wins of their own.
Gabe Hall won diving, Jon Grimes won the 100 fly, Aiden Michael won the 100 free and Tyler Mullen won the 500 free.
“Those four are starting to really put in a lot more consistent work at practice. That’s been good to see,” Greenfield-Central boys head coach Ben Felver said. “They’re also really starting to become a lot better leaders for our newer swimmers and we’re starting to see that pay off in the kids that didn’t finish first.”
“We really talked about building our depth and getting some second and third swimmers to get us some more points. I was really impressed with the improvement that we were able to show in just one week. We’ll be fine if we can just continue to show that going forward.”
To secure the win, New Palestine won the final four events.
Lynch picked up his third win as a member of the 200 free relay team along with Watson, Fuller, and Dontae Thompson, and then won his fourth event in the 100 backstroke.
Blake Hurst grabbed first in the 100 breaststroke and the Dragons capped off the night with a win in the 400 free.
“They’ve continued to work as hard as they did last year and have even improved on that into the season,” Kingery said. “You just can’t ask for any better work ethic.”
Along with the four wins, the Cougars got second-place finishes in other events from Michael, Grimes, Cooper Schmitt, Mason Stoughton, and Isaac Johnson.
“New Pal is the team that we’re chasing, they won the sectional last year,” Felver said. “It was nice to come out and compete with them in some places.”
