Crawfordsville boys swimming are back on top of the Sagamore Conference. After winning 10 of the 12 events at the 2022 Conference Championships on Saturday, the Athenians cruised to the title with 490 points to second place Lebanon’s 387. North Montgomery placed seventh with 127 points while the Mounties ended in eighth with 113.
Tristian Callejas, and the brother tandem of Whitman and Marshall Horton all took home four total wins for the Athenians. The trio was awarded with the Duane Swisher Memorial High Points award by each scoring 40 points for CHS.
“We’re just really blessed with some hard working boys,” Crawfordsville coach Kevin Hedrick said. “They all love to get out and race. We broke three conference records today and had many more lifetime bests today. Campbell Mason came through huge for us today winning the 500. He’s been working so hard and that was phenomenal to watch him today. We simply didn’t rest today. We came in ready to go this week and told ourselves to keep right on trucking into Saturday.”
Over on the girls side for the Athenains they had a strong showing with a third place finishing just 23 points behind second place Lebanon (298) and Western Boone (449) who secured their first SAC title in 22 years. North Montgomery earned a fourth place finish with 261 points while Southmont placed sixth with 213.
While still missing one of their top divers and their top girl in the breaststroke, the depth of the girls team prevailed and many girls rose to the occasion. Senior leader Alyx Bannon was victorious in the 50 and 100 freestyle while also being a part of the 400 freestyle relay that placed first. Bannon also helped the Lady Athenians to a second place finish in the 200 freestyle relay. For her strong performance, like the boys trio of the Hortman’s and Callejas, Bannon was awarded also with the Duane Swisher Memorial High Points award.
“Alyx was right on her lifetime bests today,” Hedrick said. “Then you have Sophia Melevage step up and win the 100 fly and almost win the 200 free. For her to do that as a freshman was big for us. For all both of our teams it was really good day.”
The Chargers had strong showings all around from the girls led by Maggie Michael, Annabel Anderson, Brooklyn Kerns, Gracen Schwabe and Sydnee Turner who all scored 23 or more points for the Lady Chargers. Erin Yeager was ecstatic after the meet talking about the strong performances from her girls.
“We had some girls who had to have major time drops just to get into the finals today,” she said. “When they were able to do that a large percentage of them came back again and had even better swims. That’s exactly what you want and I was beyond ecstatic for them. We have some things to work but I love where we’re at right now. A fourth place finish is not a bad showing for us what so ever.”
On the boys side for the Chargers this was their chance to experience the big meet atmosphere for the first time for many of them. Yeager is simply focused on improvement with her young boys team and just like the girls, was happy with what she saw.
“They came out and swam big today,” she said. “Avery and Jamason swam great and most of my boys aren’t supposed to be swimming this fast yet. Just to see them get up and go, I was very proud of them. Watching them compete and get this expereince underneath their belt is nice and sets us up mentally for where we go from here which is now foucusing on sectional.”
The Mounties are still working their way back in terms of getting fully healthy. Despite not being at full strength, Mountie coach Jane Coudret saw individuals on both sides that stood out.
“Overall, I was very pleased with our performances on Thursday and today,” she said. “Marley Jones and Sami Mooday stood out for the girls. They both finished up with personal best times in both their events. Clay Allen, Hunter Gray, Aaron Evans, and Mason Cass all had personal best times for the boys. Hopefully we can get our team back to full strength here very soon.”
