The Championship meet took place January 25th at the St. George’s Compton Aquatic Center. The format was preliminaries in the morning and finals at night. Before the meet started, the Dragon Men were favored over Memphis University School by a 5 point margin and the Women were 32 points behind St Mary’s. Overall Collierville was predicted to score 782 points over Houston 609 points.
The swimmers stepped up and ended up scoring an overall 820 points against Houston’s 609.5. The Women’s team closed the gap, but fell 7 points short of St. Mary’s. The Men had some impressive swims and opened up an advantage of 27 points at the end of the night.
The Collierville Women’s team had some outstanding results led up by team captain and future Arizona State swimmer Erin Milligan. Erin held her title of County champion and set a new County record in both of her events 200 IM with 2:05.49 and 100 freestyle with 50.98. Haylee Haynes became a County champion for the first time on the 50 butterfly with a 27.32 and finished 6th on the 100 fly with a 1:01.08. Senior Emma Hurdle was 2nd on the 50 backstroke 28.72 and 4th on the 50 butterfly 28.5. Two Freshman girls had their first experience at County championship and showed a little bit of the future of the program. Elle Recor was 2nd on the 100 backstroke 1:00.98 and 3rd on the 50 freestyle 25.28. Ginger Anders was 4th on the 50 backstroke and 7th on the 100 butterfly with a 30.35 and 1:03.20 respectively. The Women’s relays finished 3rd on the 200 medley, 2nd on the 200 free, and 2nd on the 400 free.
The Collierville men performed really well as a team winning the 200 free relay and taking a 3rd and a 4th place on the other two relays. The individual performances were led by Jordan Norris’s wins on the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke with a 53.36 and 53.92 respectively. Team Captain Aidan Stanford also became County champion on the 50 backstroke. Sophomore Ben Foster showed some great swims with a 3rd place on the 100 Freestyle and a 5th place on the 200 freestyle 50.49 and 1:49.98. Our breaststroker Ben Simcoe scored 4th on the 50 breast and 100 breast. Noah Harbin finished 4th on the 50 free and Joshua Ballew 3rd on the 50 back. Zach Byars had some great performances finishing 4th on the 100 back and 6th on the 200 IM.
Firs year Head Coach Gui Passos was very pleased with the results “It feels great to win and maintain the tradition of the Dragons. The swimmers really stepped up today and performed above the predictions. Most important we saw a lot of best times, many freshmen competing with no fear, and a few new state qualifiers".
The Dragons travel to Knoxville Thursday, February 6th, to compete at the Tennessee State Championships.
State Roster
Ginger Anders, Zachary Byars, Julia Cavanaugh, Jana Chao, Dylan Cline, Will Cozart, Joseph Eberle, Ben Foster, Noah Harbin, Haylee Haynes, Emma Hurdle, Ben Johnson, Martin Maxim, Erin Milligan, Jordan Norris, Elle Recor, Mark Rose, Ben Simcoe, Gabriel Stark, Emily Sun
County Score
Overall
1 Collierville High School 820
2 Houston Mustang 609.5
3 MHEA 579
4 Memphis University 425
5 St. George's Indepen. 390
Men
1 Collierville High School 452
2 Memphis University 425
3 Houston Mustang 299.5
4 MHEA 290
5 Arlington High 192.5
Women
1 St. Mary's Episcopal 375
2 Collierville High School. 368
3 Houston Mustang 310
4 MHEA 289
5 Hutchison School 248
