AUSTIN – It was a record-setting day for the Boerne Champion swim program in many ways last Saturday at the 5A state meet held at the Lee and Joe Jamail Swim Center in Austin.
There were several highlights for the program, including the most total number of medals won at state (9) – which included the most gold medals earned at state (6) – to setting several 5A state records along the way (4), but the biggest accomplishment came when the Lady Chargers won the program’s first ever state championship in swimming.
Last Saturdays championship came down to the very last race of the day, the girls 400-yard medley relay, The Lady Chargers needed a lot to happen in the race and things went their way as they won the race to tally 176 points to edge Frisco Reedy by three points, 176-173.
Chargers coach Scott Slay said the team rose to the occasion.
“I don’t think it could have been closer than that. We started doing some math at the end and we had some girls that moved up and it helped us tremendously,” he said. “We did our job and won the big relays and luckily won that last one.”
In all, the Chargers won 9 medals – 5 from the girls with 4 gold and a bronze – while the boys claimed 4 medals – 2 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze. They also set four new 5A state records, two for the boys and two for the girls.
They returned to Boerne with a team championship, 6 gold medals, 1 silver and 2 bronze to make it quite a day.
Varsity Girls
Heading into the last race, the Champion girls had to win it, while they needed Reedy to finish 7th or 8th in the field of eight.
Champion took care of business after Cora Skoog, Karly Whitehead, Cameron Kellogg and Kate Canales combined for a 3:28.50, while Reedy placed 8th with a 3:38.71.
Reedy was fourth after the first leg, but slipped to sixth by the second leg, before falling to eighth by the third leg and not moving up from there with the anchor leg.
Before the final race, Reedy was in first by 15 points (151136) so the only way for it to work for the Champion girls was for them to win the race and earn 40 points and hope Reedy finished 7th for 24 points or 8th for 22 points.
If Reedy placed 6th in the race, they would have won the 5A title by a point over Champion.
So there was pressure, but Charger sophomore Kate Canales said that just comes with competing for the state title.
“Pressure is good, sometimes it can get to your head but our main focus was on ourselves, we weren’t focused on anybody else, just trying to do our best and score our points where we needed to score points,” she said. “We were very fortunate to have a girl in almost every event for finals and that helped us a lot. We knew what we needed to do, and we did that.”
Canales led the medal haul after she earned four gold – two individual and two relays – and just missed out on being named swimmer of the meet.
Canales won an individual gold medal in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 54.87 and Canales also took first in the girls 100-yard breaststroke and broke the state record she broke Friday with a 1:00.79. On Friday, she finished with a 1:01.43.
Canales was part of two gold-medal relay teams after Skoog, Whitehead, Kellogg and Canales won the 400-yard freestyle relay in the last race of the day and also captured 1st in the first race of the day, the 200-yard medley relay.
In that 200 medley, White- head, Canales, Kellogg and Skoog set a new 5A record with a time of 1:43.93 to earn gold, breaking the record they set Friday (1:44.28).
The two medley first-place finishes and the two firstplace finishes by Canales gave the team 120 points, 40 for each relay and 20 for each individual event.
Whitehead picked up 5 more points after she was 12th in the 200 free with a time of 1:55.82.
Addison Graham and Kellogg went 9th and 11th in the 200-yard IM after Graham came in at 2:07.49 for 9 points and Kellogg clocked in at 2:08.92 for 6 points, while Graham also picked up 7 points in the 500-yard freestyle after she was 10th with a 5:05.77.
Skoog placed 3rd for bronze in the 100-yard freestyle after posting a 51.42 for 16 points and Whitehead was 6th in the 100 backstroke for 13 more points with a time of 56.43.
Varsity Boys
The Champion boys were 6th with 150 points and earned 4 state medals.
The Harrison brothers had a hand in all four medals as part of a gold-medal winning relay, while Bexon Harrison won individual gold and silver, and Will Harrison earned bronze.
Bexon Harrison started things off with a record-setting performance in the 200-yard freestyle. Harrison won the race with a 1:35.67 for 20 points to break the 5A record he set the day before (1:35.73).
Will Harrison earned a bronze in the 50-yard freestyle after clocking in at 20.28 for 16 points, while teammate Will Tolar was 6th at 20.80 for 13 points.
Will Harrison also came in 6th in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 50.08 for 13 points.
In the 100-yard freestyle, Bexon Harrison finished 2nd for silver and 17 points after clocking in at 43.99 and it took a state record by Jack Boysen (43.55) to beat him.
Tolar placed 16th in the 100 free to pick up 1 team point after he turned in a 47.33.
The Champion boys 200free relay broke a 5A state mark on Friday in prelims (1:23.35) and topped it again in Saturday’s finals after Bexon Harrison, Will Harrison, EJ Altermatt and Tolar teamed up for a 1:22.95 to set a new state record and collect 40 points.
In the final event of the day, the Chargers 400-yard freestyle relay of the Harrison brothers, Owen Altermatt and Tolar just missed out on a medal and came in 4th with a 3:05.77 for 30 points to round out the scoring.
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