CHS swim teams post 11 school records

Staff report

ALBUQUERQUE — Clovis High’s swimming teams may not have a lot of depth, but they showed they have some quality in Friday’s preliminaries of state swimming competition at Albuquerque Academy.

CHS swimmers posted 11 school records — seven for the boys, four for the girls — and qualified seven boys events and six girls events for today’s championship finals (top eight in prelims).

They also have seven girls events and two boys events in the consolation finals (ninth through 16th on Friday).

Senior Everett Ward accounted for four of the school marks. He was first in the 100 backstroke (52.49), breaking his own mark by nearly 1 1/2 seconds, and took fifth in the 200 freestyle (1:45.78). Meantime, Ward, junior Case Schaap and freshmen James Skuse and Sean White set marks in qualifying third in the 200 freestyle relay (1:31.29) and second in the 400 freestyle relay (3:18.40).

CHS coach Vincent de Maio said Ward was also credited with school records in the 50 and 100 freestyle for his first leg on both relays. Meantime Schaap set a record by placing third in the 200 individual medley (2:00.13).

“The boys are going to be super-tough (in the finals) for a small team,” de Maio said. “But we have to be ready to swim (today). We’ll take about 15 minutes to enjoy this, and get ready for (the finals).”

The Wildcats have two entries in the consolation finals — Simms, ninth in the 200 freestyle (1:49.08) and Skuse, 13th in the 100 backstroke (51.00).

The girls had three third-place finishes, including the 200 medley relay of eighth-grader Aspyn Osburn, sophomore Jasmine White, freshman Katie Kelley and eighth-grader Anya Hammond (1:53.03); Hammond in the 500 freestyle (5:17.49), and White in the 100 breaststroke (1:08.41).

Hammond also set a record in the 200 freestyle, placing sixth in 1:59.28. Also qualifying for championship finals were freshman Olivia Reeb, seventh in the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.57 — which also bettered White’s previous school mark of 1:10.48 — and the 400 freestyle relay team of White, Osburn, Reeb and Hammond, eighth in 3:48.34.

Seven Lady Wildcats entries made it to the consolation finals — Reeb, ninth in the 200 individual medley (2:16.16); the 200 freestyle relay with Kelley, freshman Annie Smith, eighth-grader Mykala Chavez and Reeb, ninth (1:46.39); Kelley, 10th in the 100 butterfly (1:00.79); Osburn, 10th in the 100 backstroke (1:02.87) and 14th in the 500 freestyle (5:34.83); White, 14th in the 200 IM (2:19.38), and Kelley, 16th in the 50 freestyle (26.02).

de Maio said the two ninth-place finishers just missed out on the championship finals.

“We knew it would come down to hundredths (of a second),” he said. “The girls were great, but the meet’s fast and everybody is getting faster.”