There arguably hasn’t been a run of dominance in Montgomery county over the last decade that’s been more impressive than what the Crawfordsville boys swim team continues to do year in and year out. Saturday the Athenians hosted the IHSAA Swim Sectional in search of their seventh sectional title in the last eight seasons. Coming in as the heavy favorites, that’s exactly what the Athenians did winning 10 of the 11 events en route to another sectional crown.
In total Crawfordsville will send eight individuals to Friday’s State Finals at IUPUI as Marshall and Whitman Horton, Thristan Callejas, Evan Chaney, Campbell Mason, Ben Brown, Aidan Mason, Joseph Sanchez will all represent the Athenians in Indianapolis.
The Athenians scored 501 points as second place Twin Lakes scored 318. Fountain Central placed fourth with 229, Southmont sixth with 133, and North Montgomery tied for ninth with Western Boone with 113 points.
Crawfordsville coach Kevin Hedrick summed up the meet in one simple word.
“Fun,” the longtime CHS coach said. “The kids have put in a ton of hard work and when you work as hard as these guys have you get to have fun like we’re having. The dedication that they’ve shown has been incredible to watch.”
Both Horton’s and Callejas swept all four of their races. The day started with a bang for CHS as the foursome of the Horton’s, Callejas, and Chaney broke the sectional record in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:36.40. Callejas was also victorious in the 200 freestyle, 100 butterfly, and 400 freestyle relay.
While the day was an all-around success for the Athenians, it was the elder Horton Marshall who played a role in breaking all three sectional records. Including the 200 medley relay, Horton was on the 200 freestyle team with Chaney, his younger brother Whitman, and Ben Brown as the tandem not only broke the sectional record with a time of 1:27.63, they also broke the pool record as well. To cap off the day Marshall swam a 57.86 in the 100 breast stroke which was the third and final record to be broken on the day.
“Those are hard records to break and those kids up there on that record board are studs,” Hedrick said. “We’ve been trying to make it up there for a while now and doing it today is just icing on the cake.”
Horton and Callejas have been two of the key seniors for the Athenians all season in their dominating run. Both of them talked about getting to end their careers with another sectional title and getting to race at IUPUI one final time.
“I couldn’t have done it without the support of all my other teammates,” Callejas said. “This has been a blessing all season long and I just love this team. Having all of the records is cool and all but what I love most is just how we’ve bonded on bus rides, the locker room talks, all of that means so much more to me.”
Marshall who will get to share the state finals experience with his brother credited the Athenian coaching staff for pushing them to be as dominate as they have been.
“Coach Hedrick was a state champion himself and he wants us to get the same experience that he had,” Horton said. “He prepares us to get to state and I just have to pay our success to him, coach Bannon, Melevage for their help. It’s just a dream come true to compete at the state level especially to be able to do it with your brother who you’ve been swimming with your whole life. I think there’s nothing like it and I’m blessed to be able to do it with this team.”
All six of the Crawfordsville seniors will get to end their careers on the biggest stage. The group has played a huge role in the success of the Athenian swim program over the last four seasons and Hedrick knows it’ll be hard to replicate what this group has accomplished.
“It’s just an overall great group,” he said. “We’re fortunate enough to have a great senior class like these guys. We’ll can only hope that we’ll try and replicate it someday.”
Southmont’s Trent Jones just missed out on qualifying for the state finals. He was edged out in the 100 butterfly by Callejas as Jones’s 54.47 was just .31 behind Callejas’s 54.16.
North Montgomery’s does come to an end but the Chargers will bring every swimmer back as they will lose no seniors from this year’s team.
Charger coach Erin Yeager was pleased with how her young team handled the big moment of the sectional.
“We had some big time drops from a few guys who came back and swam today and that was exciting to see,” she said. “All of our relays dropped times as well and we just had a ton of great swims overall. We just hope to build and grow off what we did this year. We had some freshman who got into some consolations and even some into the finals. To see some of our young guys get this big meet experience in multiple meets this year was good and they handled that pressure very well.”
Adding to the celebration and awards that CHS earned on Saturday, Crawfordsville coach Kevin Hedrick was voted the coach of the year for the sectional.
Hedrick as he has always took the celebratory dive into the pool to celebrate with his team, suit and all.
It’s been an annual tradition for Crawfordsville to be represented at the State Finals, and once again the Athenians will do just that swimming in 10 of the 11 events.
The eight Athenians will make the trip to the IUPUI Natatorium on Friday for the state pre-lims which are scheduled to get underway beginning at 6 p.m.
