It’s the dream of every area swimmer here in Montgomery County and nearby Fountain Central. To swim under the bright lights of the IUPUI Natatorium at the IHSAA Girls Swimming State Finals. 10 area swimmers will get that opportunity Friday night as Crawfordsville will send six, North Montgomery three and the Mustangs will send senior Mary Rice.
The Athenians will have juniors Ellie Walker, Sophia Melevage, Guinevere Schmitzer-Torbert, sophomores Marie Hesler, Maesa Horton, and freshman Melanie Dowd represent CHS in four different events. CHS opens up the night swimming in the first event, the 200 medley relay as Walker, Schmitzer-Torbert, Hesler and Dowd make up the relay team. The foursome’s seed time stands at 1:54.48. Hesler will be the lone Athenian swimming in a solo event as the sophomore swims in the 500 freestyle. Hesler won the sectional last Saturday with a time of 5:31.50. Horton, Melevage, Schmitzer-Torbert, and Hesler make up the 200 freestyle relay team for CHS who their time of 1:41.57 has them seeded 26th. Rounding out the night for CHS the group of Walker, Horton, Dowd, and Melevage will swim in the 400 freestyle relay and their time of 3:46.13 has them seeded 28th.
North Montgomery will be represented by sophomores Kylie Sankey and Dusty Robinson along with senior Annabel Anderson who will get to cap her career on the biggest stage. Sankey will swim in the 200 freestyle with her time of 2:00.60 with Robinson swimming in the 100 backstroke with her time of 1:00.84. Anderson will swim in two events for the Chargers as the senior sprinter won the sectional title in both the 50 and 100 freestyle. Anderson seed time in the 50 stands 24.97 while her time in the 100 is a 55.12.
Fountain Central’s Rice won a thriller in the 100 breaststroke (1:10.32) by 41 hundredths of a second after she was seeded second coming into the finals last Saturday. Rice will be making the first appearance for an FC female swimmer since Brooke Nine back in 2017 to compete at the state finals and the first Mustang overall since Rice’s older brother Sam Rice. Mary, like Anderson of North will get to end her career at FC swimming at the highest level.
Swimming at IUPUI gets underway Friday at 6 p.m. JR_Sports on twitter will have updates from all 10 area swimmers as they get to share the pool with the state’s best.
