Grizzly Cubs roll in sectional tuneup

There are still a few dual meets left in the season, but Franklin boys and girls swimming coach Zach DeWitt already is looking toward sectionals, which are a few weeks away.

And who could blame him?

DeWitt limited some of his best swimmers against rival Whiteland on Thursday night but still had enough firepower for both of his teams to stay unbeaten.

The Franklin boys improved to 10-0 by beating the Warriors 108-75. Meanwhile, the Franklin girls had a perfect night, winning all 12 events to beat Whiteland 138-42 and go one win better than their male counterparts at 11-0.

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DeWitt has something this season that he hasn’t had through all the Cubs’ recent successes, and that’s depth. The coach wanted to give his younger swimmers a chance to show what they can do Thursday, and they were impressive.

“It’s the time of the season that we and other teams are looking ahead,” DeWitt said, so some of our starters only swam a few times, but what I wanted was to get our other kids in and they certainly showed up.”

DeWitt held out freshman sensation Max Kramer from this meet and limited sophomore Jacob Destrampe to only two individual events,  both of which he won — the 100 butterfly and 200 freestyle.

DeWitt also kept one of his stop female swimmers to one individual event — freshman Carla Gildersleeve, who won the 200 individual medley — but sophomores Scarlet Friend and Allie Terrell each picked up a pair of individual wins for the Cubs.

Friend won the 50 and the 100 free, while Terrell took the 100 backstroke and 500 free.

In addition to Destrampe, the Cubs had two more individual winners, with senior Michael Couet taking the 100 free and 100 back, and sophomore Griffin Edwards winning the 100 breaststroke and 500 free.

Whiteland was not without its wins. Senior Matt Kovacs claimed the 50 free in a time of 23.70 seconds. Sophomore Colin Barton won the boys 1-meter diving, and the Warriors’ 400 freestyle relay team of Kovacs, Brenden Gough, Tad Halle and Sam Walls was victorious.

Not only was it a night for DeWitt to tinker with the lineup, it was also a time for him to check out the Cubs’ future, which appears as bright as the recent past.

“We played around and had some fun,” DeWitt said. “I think (the Warriors) have some good swimmers, and they did the same thing (limiting events for top swimmers).

“We all swam hard and had a good meet.”