Carolyn Ives and Hanna Lee each won two state championships in their respective age groups, with Ives taking top honors in the girls 15-18 50-yard freestyle in 25.49 seconds, as well as the 100-yard freestyle championship (55.71). Lee, meanwhile, won her state titles in the girls 11-and-12 50-yard freestyle (26.14) and 50-yard backstroke (30.40).
On the boys side, Donald Sener earned his state championship in the 11-and-12 50-yard breaststroke (31.81) to highlight a strong second day of action for Bluefin coach David Weeks.
“That’s pretty good. Among three kids we get five state titles. Carolyn had her local nemesis and Carolyn out-touched her in a race. Hanna swam two really good races and Donald came through with a great breaststroke,” Weeks said. “We didn’t swim technically as good as we needed to, but we swam aggressively enough to win. All the kids that came back [Saturday] really swam aggressive. They weren’t tight and didn’t swim tired, and that’s what I was afraid of.”
This year marked the fourth consecutive year the Carrollton Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Department hosted the two-day event and this year brought in a record number of swimmers with 1,208 competitors on hand between Friday and Saturday.
Weeks said even the Bluefins that didn’t qualify into the finals still swam great times and gave tremendous effort this weekend.
“The kids [Saturday] morning swam fantastic. They swam their hearts out. You know, a lot of best times the whole weekend. It wasn’t just [Saturday] morning, it was [Friday] morning. We had 67 Bluefins make it to state. Last year I think it was 51. So I’m extremely proud of them. The depth is growing. Now with the Olympics, maybe things will even pick up more,” Weeks said.
Rounding out the Bluefin placers on Saturday evening were Josh Grover with a second-place finish in the boys 15-18 100-yard IM (55.55) and a fifth-place showing in the 50-yard butterfly (24.78), while Sener also came in fourth in the 100-yard IM (1:08.96).
Carrollton also had four relays place, with quartet of Lee, Harper Minor, Ashley Todd and Jewell Burson taking fifth in the 12-and-under 200-yard medley relay (2:11.52), while Ives, Mina Momtahan, Julia Campbell and Molly Anderson came in sixth in the 18-and-under 200-yard freestyle relay (1:52.26) and Katherine Denney, Sara Momtahan, Maddie Campbell and Anna Naguszewski came in seventh in the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:53.54) and eighth in the 200-yard medley relay (2:11.56).
And with the largest annual single event the CPRCAD puts on now in the books, Weeks said there are a lot of individuals that deserve credit in making it a success once again. The department will not be hosting the meet next year due to renovations around the facility, but it intends to bid on it in future years after 2013.
“We had great parental support. We got many compliments. We decided we’re not going to host it next year. We do have the renovations going on. But we hope that we have made it better than what it was, and I think we have. And that comes from a strong parental organization. I can sit here and direct, but if they can’t have fun with it and enjoy what they’re doing — from awards to timing to judging to hospitality to the staff doing the bullpen, the clean-up crew, the lifeguards — everybody was a major part of this,” Weeks said.
“Then the community, we had the most restaurants ever show up at the welcome party [Thursday]. I hope each and every one of them got success from the meet.”
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