60+ of AHS’s best swimmers went into their district meet and came out successful with the girl’s team placing sixth overall and the boys team placing fifth. To add to that, the Swim & Dive Team had 3 divers, 4 relays, and 4 different swimmers qualify in individual events.
“I’m relaxing as much as possible, in addition to sleeping and eating well,” senior Dylan Gore said.
Gore qualified for the 200 meter freestyle in addition to being apart of the boys 200 freestyle relay and the 400 freestyle relay. The team for the 200 freestyle relay includes Aaron Boyd, Stephen Oakes, Matt Del Signore,and Dylan Gore. And the 400 freestyle relay includes Aaron Boyd, Stephen Oakes, Daniel Jessen, and Dylan Gore. Jessen also qualified 50 meter freestyle and 100 meter freestyle and Del Signore qualified for the 100 butterfly. Jessen and Del Signore add another relay to their event list which is the 200 meter medley relay along with teammates Andrew Boyd and Stephen Oakes.
The boys team competed on Thursday night at Oak Marr Recenter. The boys 200 freestyle relay team which included Aaron Boyd, Stephen Oakes, Matt Del Signore, and Daniel Jessen broke AHS’ relay record for the event on Thursday night at the meet. Along with that record breaking relay, the boys 200 medley relay with the team of Daniel Jessen, Matt Del Signore, Stephen Oakes, and Andrew Boyd qualified for states in the event. Also, senior Daniel Jessen qualified for states in both the 50 freestyle and the 100 freestyle.
On Tuesday, two of AHS’ Dive Team members, Clark Girardin and Paul Helfgot competed in their Regional Dive meet. Senior Clark Girardin finished 14th and teammate Paul Helfgot following him finishing 19th overall. Following the boys dive meet was the girls Regional dive meet which occurred on Wednesday. Junior Allie Vogus was the only girl representing Annandale in the meet. She went in seeded 5th and came out 9th overall.
“Competing at regionals is different than normals meets because there are so many more girls there and everyone is really good at diving. Most people dive year round and since I don’t dive year round I have to step up and be focused and just do my best,” junior Allie Vogus said.
Finishing out regionals we end with the girls Swim Team competing on Friday, once again at Oak Marr Recenter.
“[My expectations are] to drop more time and make it to finals,” junior Tricia Liller said.
Liller is the only girl from AHS who qualified in an individual event. She was seeded 17th going into regions in the 100 meter breaststroke. Liller finished 17th overall in the region with a best time.
Following Tricia is the girls 4X100 freestyle relay which includes seniors Sarah Bergen and Betsy Kruse as well as juniors Kaitlin Martindale and Sarah Padrutt. The relay went into regions seeded 21st, but were unfortunately disqualified in prelims due to an early start.
