Center Grove swimmers thinking big this winter

All of that cooking was just the appetizer.

For all of the meet records and personal bests thrown down at the Johnson County meet two weeks ago, Center Grove’s swimmers are confident that they’ve got far more left in the tank for when it matters most.

Yes, the Trojans may have been a little more geared up than usual for a mid-December competition, but they don’t believe that their dominating county performance is the best they’ve got. If anything, it’s made them even more confident about just how much they can achieve over the next two months.

“Everyone’s excited,” said Tenley Wilkins, who won the 50-yard freestyle at county and also anchored Center Grove’s winning medley relay. “Our new coaching helped, and how hard we’ve been working in practice is definitely a key factor to how much we are dropping. We’re all very excited for our championship meets; county was a good preview for what sectionals and state are going to look like, and our goal is to send as many people to state, and succeed, as possible.”

Though junior Lara Phipps is the only returning Trojan swimmer who has scored individual points at the state meet (diver Mia Prusiecki is the reigning state champion), Center Grove has several others back with meaningful postseason experience. Evan Hernandez won two relay medals last winter, and fellow senior Connor Conkin earned one on the medley relay. Junior Lexi Stuart qualified as an individual in the 50 free last year, and both she and classmate Grace Clarkston joined Phipps on the Trojans’ 200 free relay, which placed eighth. Additionally, senior Sam Smith competed at state as an Indian Creek sophomore.

That the team performed so well in mid-December — when schools are hitting the heart of their most rigorous training period of the season — has everyone feeling good about their prospects for sectional and state.

“These times are good indicators of where we can be in February,” senior Aleks Parsetich said. “I think we’re going to do great when state comes around.”

Coach Brad Smith was encouraged by the Trojans following up with an impressive showing at the Center Grove Winter Invitational this Wednesday, where the girls won handily and the boys edged University School, which claimed its seventh Division II state title in Ohio last winter.

Smith sees these performances as setting Center Grove up for larger successes not just this season, but perhaps in the years to come as well.

“That’s the thing — we’re swimming well, and we’re tired,” he said. “So that does give us a leg to stand on here as we look at the second half of the season and really look at what our goals are. We want to turn heads at the state meet, and I don’t know where we’ll necessarily place, but we just want to put Center Grove back on the map and start being a state power — and I think we’re on the road to do that.”

While the county times were certainly impressive and might hold up come February — Hernandez’s winning 50 free time of 20.80 seconds would have easily won him a sectional title last season — the Trojans still see themselves going even faster by the time the postseason arrives.

“We still have our goals set, Wilkins said. “We still are so excited to show at sectionals what we can do, and we’re going to drop even more time than at county. We’re still acting like we need to fight for our sectional win and we need to drop a lot of time.”

Repeating as sectional champs after breaking Franklin’s recent stranglehold on those titles last season isn’t even the primary goal for the Trojans anymore. They’re not taking those meets for granted by any means; the Grizzly Cub boys and girls both remain a formidable challenge. But the incredible early-season success has Center Grove thinking more about the bigger picture than it has in quite some time.

Now, earning that statewide respect is paramount. The Trojans have been cooking, sure — but they’re still hungry.

“We’re shooting for top five as a team,” Sam Smith said of the team’s state aspirations. “I think we can go way faster. County was great for us, but with a big taper, new suits, stuff like that, I think we can go a lot faster — and we should be aiming to get a lot faster.”