Both Wasatch and Park City High School took home hardware from the Utah state championship swim meet last week.
Wasatch High School swim coach Shawn Marsing said that winning the girl’s 5A state swim title over the weekend was a complete team effort.
“It took every single girl that we had,” Marsing said. “We didn’t win one individual race. We did win the 200 freestyle relay but again winning a relay shows that it takes more than one girl. Every one of our girls stepped up and swam better than even what I expected in most cases. They did great and we needed every point.”
Junior Maddy Moulton placed 3rd in the 100 breastroke and 6th in the 200 individual medley posting personal best times in both events. Moulton’s final lap of the day as the third leg of the 400 freestyle relay was incredibly important.
“I knew going into it, they had just told us we had to get 3rd or better to win the state title otherwise we weren’t going to win if we got any lower than 3rd,” Moulton explained. “We were seeded 5th so we knew we had to perform higher than we were originally seeded. I had just barely swam my event before so I was pretty tired. I was trying to catch my breath before I had to go again. By the time I dove in at third, we were already in third place when I dove in. I just knew that I had to try to hold on to where we were at already and hope that it would work out.”
It did work out as the lady wasps finished 3rd in the 400 freestyle and clinched the title. Teammate Claire Kieffer described the feeling of knowing they had won a state title.
“It kind of felt unreal,” Kieffer recalled. “After the relay you come in third and you don’t really feel like a state champion but our whole team was going crazy which was really fun. I don’t think that any of the other teams there really knew how the points were scoring so they didn’t really know already knew that we had won.”
Kieffer had a great meet herself. She placed 2nd in the 50 freestyle and 3rd in the 100 freestyle. Kieffer was the only senior who qualified for state and was the team’s captain.
“I’ve just been trying all season to help every girl put all the work in at practice,” Kieffer continued. “You can’t just not put the work in and then expect a good result. Even at our meet we had a couple of races where girls got discouraged with their times because they weren’t as fast as they wanted them to be. So I just tried to, like before our last relay, just make sure all the girls were ready. Knew what they had to do and were excited about the race.
Moulton emphasized that it was a team effort to win the title.
“It was really exciting especially because we didn’t have any individual state champions in any of our individual events,” Moulton explained. “That meant that it was the entire team that had to earn the points all together. It wasn’t just anyone carrying the team all by themselves. It was an effort with everyone working together. I felt like that made it mean more because we all knew that we had all contributed so much to allowing us to win. It was really exciting just to be able to look up and see that score and know that we had worked our very hardest just to make that happen.”
Others placing high include Maddi Sisneros 3rd in the 100 butterfly and 4th in the 200 individual medley. While Trevi Ogilvie placed 4th in the 50 freestyle.
On the boy’s side Braden Patterson placed 4th in the 100 freestyle while Oliver James placed 6th in the 50 freestyle.
Coach Marsing was awarded the 5A Coach of the Year award but said that none of it would be possible without the season-long effort from the team.
“This amazing group of young women who have dedicated a lot of time to being able to achieve this goal,” Marsing said. “This is something that we’ve kept our eye on early in the season in September and had slowly been working towards and realized that it was going to take an entire team effort. Not just last weekend but all year long. It’s the longest season in high school sports and these girls really dedicated. I love and appreciate them. They really made this come together so can’t say enough about their hard work.”
Meanwhile Park City High School’s girls swim team finished the season 2nd in the state in the 4A divisional state meet. Coach Mike Werner says that although the Miners were hoping to extend their state championship streak to six straight, he was still pleased with their effort.
“It’s one of those things that’s bitter-sweet,” Werner explained. “You always want to continue to keep things going but we knew going in that this was going to be a rebuilding year for us. The kids swam really well and really stepped up. Midway through the season we figured we were going to be the underdog and when state came around, we were actually supposed to be 2nd by about 110 points. We ended up 2nd by about 47.5 so we made up about 60 points. So that’s why Friday was so important for us and winning those two relays for the girls was really cool and fun. The girls really stepped up and swam well together on that.”
Senior Elise Bellar won two individual titles in the 200 individual medley and the 500 freestyle. Bellar was also honored the girls swimmer of the year award. This was the 4th year in a row that a lady miner has won the award.
Sophmore Helena Djunic also won a pair of titles in the 100 and 200 freestyle.
Other Park City swimmers who placed included Senior Jessi Beyer placed 4th in the 100 breaststroke and Senior Emma Strong placed 6th in the 200 freestyle and 100 backstroke. Park City girls also won 200 and 400 freestyle relay.
On the boy’s side Junior Jack Troxel placed 4th in the 200 freestyle
Coach Werner said that the season will be a good catalyst for the challenges of moving up a division next year.
“This was a good year for us,” Werner continued. “It was nice to go in and watch the kids have to work. That’s what it’s going to be like next year going into a higher classification. Hopefully this was a way for us to get ready to buckle down and perform. We did very well this year and things went well. We had graduated a lot of people and that means that we’ve got some serious work to do to be in contention, but I have no doubts, no qualms that we’re going to come into 5A next year and make a lot of noise. I think the kids will want to push themselves and be even better than what we were this year.”
In the 3A state swim meet South Summit Senior Coven Card placed 2nd in the 100 butterfly and 3rd in the 50 freestyle.
Sophomore Tessa Richins lead the way for North Summit finishing 5th in the 100 butterfly.
