Crawfordsville’s boys’ and girls’ swimming and diving teams were both tested on Thursday night in a home loss to Harrison. The boys fell 112-73, while the girls lost 101-83.
“Harrison is typically one of the tougher meets for us,” Crawfordsville coach Kevin Hedrick said. “Harrison is usually the meet where we get them to figure out they have to swim fast through the week and dual meets in preparation for county. We get psyched up, because we know they’re coming in with some horses.”
Out of the gate, Crawfordsville’s foursome of Frannie Fuller, Abby Bannon, Halle Smith, and Alyx Bannon raced to a win in the 200 medley relay with a time of 2:12.86.
Alyx Bannon also won the 100 freestyle in a season best time of 58.8 seconds, while Fuller won the 100 backstroke in 1:13.03, and Abby Bannon won the 100 breaststroke in 1:17.68. Jaiden Barber was second in the 100 backstroke, while Cathleen McGrady was second in the 100 breaststroke, and the 500 freestyle.
Trinity Deck won the diving portion with a mark of 172.3.
On the boys side, Ben Brown helped give the Athenians a lead in the second leg of the 200 freestyle relay, as he teamed up with Hunter Conrad, Thristan Callejas, and Jack Pendleton for the win with a time of 1:35.24.
Pendleton also picked up a win in the 50 freestyle in a season best time of 23.17 seconds for the Athenians lone individual boys win. Callejas placed second to Adrian Buczkowski by less than a second in both the 200 freestyle and the 100 butterfly, but were both season best swims. Brown was second in the 50 freestyle and third in the 100 freestyle, while Pendleton was second in the 100 freestyle. Evan Chaney was second in the 100 backstroke in 1:01.61, while Conrad was second in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:10.33.
Eli Reeves won the diving portion with a mark of 155.15.
“Overall we swam a lot of season bests,” Hedrick said. “A very good meet for us with two losses. A lot of high heads.”
On the boys side, the Athenians, who returned their entire lineup from a season ago, showed off their depth in the loss, and how it will be a key down the stretch.
“It is huge,” Hedrick added. “It is great to know we are deep. We are deep everywhere except at the 500 free, and we are working on that.”
On the girls side, Crawfordsville is still searching for answers to replace Emily Humphrey, and Cami McGrady, but Hedrick is seeing steady improvement.
“It has been a challenge,” he said. “We still have a lot of opportunities out there, and when you’re young and inexperienced and without a lot of upperclassmen to help carry that through, it’s a tough thing to get girls motivated and to believe in themselves.”
Hedrick says changing the culture has been, and will continue to be the biggest focus this season.
“We are changing some culture, and we’ve got some culture to continue to change, and we are paying a lot more attention to that than we are winning.”
Crawfordsville is back in the pool at 6 p.m. on Monday at Greencastle. They host the Montgomery County meet next Saturday at 10 a.m.
