To topple a 19-year-old 200 freestyle relay record, each of the swimmers in the relay must swim the fastest 50 yard races of their lives, which is exactly what happened on Feb. 3 at the regional swim meet.
Juniors Matt Del Signore and Daniel Jessen and seniors Willie Labarca and Adam Wattenbarger, broke the 1993 school record of 1:29:78 by a half second in the regional preliminary round with a time of 1:29:28. All four members of the relay had personal best times, with Wattenbarger finishing the relay with the fastest split time of 21.8 seconds.
“I felt amazing when we found out that we actually broke the record,” Labarca said. “There was some confusion at the time because we had forgotten what the [previous] record was.”
The boys swimming in the relays were coincidentally looking at the record earlier in the day, which is displayed in Jock Lobby, while they were waiting to go the meet.
“They [the boys’ team] had a great night a preliminaries and we’re looking forward to states,” assistant swim coach April Brassard said. “The girls had great splits in the medley relay.”
In the finals round of regionals, the 200 freestyle relay placed seventh overall in the Northern Region.
The girls 200 medley relay was swam by sophomore Tricia Liller and juniors Betsy Kruse, Jenny Jessen and Sarah Bergen. The girls 200 freestyle relay was swam by senior Emily Krause and juniors Betsy Kruse, Jenny Jessen and Sarah Bergen. The 200 medley relay placed eighteenth in the region and the 200 freestyle relay placed twenty first.
“Everyone put in their best effort and we dropped a lot of time. We knew we weren’t going to place well but we did our best and had a lot of fun,” Liller said.
The boys’ team sent two swimmers who participated in individual events to regionals. Junior Daniel Jessen swam the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard backstroke. Senior Adam Wattenbarger swam the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle. Wattenbarger moved on to finals and placed sixteenth in the 100 freestyle and fourteenth in the 50 freestyle, while Daniel Jessen placed 28th in the 200 individual medley and 22nd in the 100 back. However, the Boys’ 400 freestyle relay comprised of the same swimmers as the 200 freestyle relay was disqualified due to an early start.
“I didn’t do as well as I had hoped, but I still consider that weekend successful since the 200 free relay made states and broke a record,” Wattenbarger said.
The dive team also sent three members to the regional competition, senior Patrick McCann, junior Clark Girardin and sophomore Allie Vogus. McCann placed eighth in the region, Vogus placed twelfth and Girardin placed 22nd. McCann and Vogus qualified for the states competition during districts.
“I kind of choked at regions, but luckily my districts score qualified me for states,” Vogus said. Vogus’ placed third in the district with a score of 340.75.
States for swim and dive will be held on February 17 and 18 at George Mason University.
“I want to do better and to improve. I want to do all my dives correctly and set a state record,” McCann said.
