Reagan Graves has made an immediate impact as a Greenwood freshman, winning a county championship in the 500-yard freestyle.
Daily Journal file photo
Coming off of a top-25 team finish at last season’s state meet, the Greenwood girls swim team knew it had two big holes to fill with the graduation of Grace Nuhfer and Alayna Kenworthy, two of the most impactful performers in school history.
Fortunately, the Woodmen knew they had reinforcements on the way — and nobody knew better than current senior Charli Graves, whose younger sister Reagan is making an immediate splash as a freshman along with classmate Chloe Vitatoe.
“I was really excited knowing that they were coming into it,” Charli Graves said. “We were losing two, we were gaining two, so I was hoping that we could keep our same place where we’d been — and I think that Chloe and Reagan are really helping us do that.”
So far, that’s certainly been the case. Reagan Graves showed out at last month’s Johnson County meet, out-touching Franklin senior Paige Lawrence by .19 seconds to win the 500-yard freestyle — an especially impressive feat considering Lawrence finished 12th in the state in that event last winter.
“(Winning) was my goal going into it,” Reagan said. “I was really excited, because as a freshman it really gave me a lot of confidence in what I can do later.”
Reagan was also second at county in the 200 free and anchored Greenwood’s runner-up medley relay team. Vitatoe was also a major contributor, placing third in the 100 backstroke and fourth in the 200 individual medley. That duo will be at the forefront of the Woodmen’s push to improve upon last year’s third-place finish at the Mid-State Conference meet this weekend.
Of course, the returning veterans are far from chopped liver. Senior Madison Peckinpaugh and junior Naomi Weaver both swam on Greenwood’s 15th-place medley relay at state last season, and Charli Graves competed at state in 2020 as part of the 400 freestyle relay quartet.
For the Woodmen girls, getting to the IU Natatorium — and scoring points — is an expectation now.
“We talk about it all the time,” Greenwood coach Ray Onisko said. “Not only how are we going to get there, but how are we going to score?”
Charli Graves has established herself as one of the team’s leaders over the past two seasons, and she’s comfortable in her role as one of the Woodmen’s mother hens. When asked about any sibling rivalries, both she and Reagan deaded that talk rather quickly.
“She’s been faster than me since (I was 13-14) and she was 11-12,” Charli said of Reagan. “I’m just kind of used to her being faster than me at this point.”
There’s no shame in that — Reagan is faster than a lot of swimmers. Competing with the Greenwood Gators club team, she picked up three top-20 finishes at last summer’s Senior State meet (200 and 400 freestyle and the 200 butterfly) despite being the lone 14-year-old finalist in all of those events.
With she and Vitatoe adding an infusion of young talent to the experienced core that the Woodmen brought back, confidence is understandably high that Greenwood can maintain its recent history of success on a statewide level.
“We have enough upperclassmen this year who kind of know where we’ve been and how to get there,” Charli Graves said. “I think we’re set up really well.”
