Center Grove’s Mia Prusiecki performs a dive during Saturday’s state finals at the IU Natatorium.
Chris Williams | For the Daily Journal
INDIANAPOLIS
Center Grove finished ninth despite having no seniors competing Saturday in the IHSAA girls swimming and diving state finals.
“This is definitely going to be a springboard for us for next year,” coach Brad Smith said.
A springboard itself actually gave the Trojans their biggest lift, as junior Mia Prusiecki captured the 1-meter diving title for the second consecutive year at the IU Natatorium.
Prusiecki, who has committed to Ohio State, is certainly at home at the IU Natatorium.
“I train here every day with my club, so it’s already my home pool,” she said. “So I’m pretty comfortable with the boards and everything. It definitely helped being here (at state) the previous two years.”
Prusiecki placed second as a freshman.
On the swimming side, Smith said the team was pleased with several of the weekend’s performances.
“The program is on the rise,” he said. “This is only going to bring excitement among the girls to do better. Our ultimate goal is to get back in the top five (in the state). Our season goal was to be a top-10 team and we ended up ninth, so we’re going to celebrate that. Then we’re going to be working hard to climb that ladder.”
The Trojans won their second consecutive sectional title. Franklin had won the previous six sectional titles in a row.
“We love the competition with Franklin,” Smith said. “The competition with Franklin makes us better and faster. It’s good to have a rival.”
The Trojans finished with 91 points. Franklin placed 15th and Indian Creek was 26th.
Center Grove junior Lara Phipps placed seventh in the 100-yard butterfly and eighth in the 200 individual medley.
“Her big goal was to have two individual medals and she achieved that,” Smith said.
Phipps also was on two relay teams that reached the podium. She joined juniors Lexi Stuart and Grace Clarkston and sophomore Tenley Wilkins on the sixth-place 200 freestyle relay; Phipps, Stuart, Wilkins and sophomore Clara Brandon were on the 400 freestyle team, which placed eighth.
“It was a pretty good day,” Phipps said. “Some of the times I didn’t get what I wanted to, but they were still great swims. How I swam them was really good, so I’m proud of what I did today.”
Phipps said her attitude was to have fun and do the best she could do.
Franklin coach Zach DeWitt, meanwhile, liked his team’s resiliency. The Grizzly Cubs had one of its relay teams disqualified in Friday’s preliminaries after losing another during the previous week’s sectional.
“It was another meet where we weren’t terrific during prelims Friday night, but we were in four B finals and won three of them, I thought that was really good,” DeWitt said. “You wouldn’t know we went through Hades Friday night, and that’s a testament to girls being resilient through all of this.”
Franklin sophomore Lili Ratzlaff placed ninth in both the 100 and 200 freestyle.
“It’s not the race (Ratzlaff) wanted to be in, but if you’re in the B final, you might as well win it,” DeWitt said. “She came in with the right mentality.”
Senior Allie Lacy took ninth in the 200 individual medley.
“To leave her career with that kind of note, at least leaving as a winner on a Saturday, it’s not exactly like a Disney script, but given the circumstances we were really pleased,” DeWitt said. “I think it paves the way for future girls. We’re going to need a lot of like-minded girls as we come into next year. We got a lot of underclassmen, so I think this is a nice little stepping stone into next year.”
Franklin junior Camy Quiggins had the team’s best finish, placing eighth in the 1-meter diving with 393.60 points. She was one spot behind Indian Creek’s Ella Taylor (398.60).
Ratzlaff was also on the Grizzly Cubs’ 200 freestyle relay with freshman Jovie Mowrey, senior Jenna Miller and sophomore Kathleen Lacy, which placed 13th. Allie Lacy also placed 16th in the 100 backstroke.
