By Travis Whitton, For The Herald Bulletin
FISHERS — There was a common feeling shared among the Highland, Pendleton Heights and Anderson coaches after the preliminary swimming sectional held at Hamilton Southeastern on Thursday. All were extremely happy with their boys’ swims.
The reason for the excitement was pretty much unanimous as well. The coaches were pleased because their swimmers were beating, and in some cases, smashing personal records.
Breaking personal records is quite an accomplishment but when you start breaking school records — that is another beast of its own. That is just what Jacob Childress of Pendleton Heights did in the 100-yard backstroke, and what the Highland 400-yard freestyle relay team did in the sectional prelims.
Childress broke his own school record by finishing second in the 100-yard backstroke competition. He swam a 53.35 seconds, which is below the state cut time of 54.34. If he were to swim that time in Saturday’s championship finals he would automatically go to state in this event.
The team that broke a school record was the Scots’ 400-yard freestyle relay team. The combination of Kyle Johnson, Jason Cramer, Jake Fugate and Lew Brown beat the previous school record of 3:20.93 with a time of 3:20.87.
The 400 free relay time shattered their seed time by nearly eight seconds (3:28.70).
“It was a great night, it really was,” said Highland coach Dave Renz. “The most important thing is we put ourself in position to score the maximum number of points we’re capable of doing on Saturday — I’m pleased.”
Arabians coach Jeff Maydak was fist pumping the night away as 23 of his 24 individual swims ended with personal best times.
“I was pleased as punch tonight,” said Maydak. “I thought we did a fantastic job. I’m just really happy.”
Anderson coach Jeff Eddy said that not everything went perfect for his swimmers, but he felt that they swam the best they could considering all the illnesses his team has fought through.
One swim that stood out was Matthew Gray’s 100 free, which placed him in the championship finals after finishing in fifth place. Eddy was also pleased with Seth Morris moving on to the championship finals in the 500 free with a sixth-place finish.
Jordan Eddy has battled pneumonia in the latter part of the year. He has missed a total of 20 days of swimming due to his illness. Swimming in the 500 free (an endurance event) would take a Herculean-type effort just to finish. He placed 10th, which put him in the consolation finals on Saturday.
“A little too much this year,” Eddy of his team’s struggles with illnesses. “We’re just happy to do as well as we did.”
