Center Grove swimmers retain county championships

Lara Phipps would like to close out her senior season atop the podium at the state meet in February.

If her performance in the Johnson County meet is any indication, the Center Grove star will be in a good position to make a run at it.

Phipps set meet records in both the 200-yard freestyle and the 100 butterfly and was a part of two more on relays, leading the host Trojans to a third consecutive sweep of the girls and boys county titles on Saturday morning.

Center Grove’s girls defeated Franklin, 529-470, while the Trojan boys topped the Grizzly Cubs by a similar 537-432 score.

“We definitely gear up for this meet,” Center Grove coach Brad Smith said. “With us not having a conference or anything else, it just fits in our schedule really well to kind of use this as our midseason gauge, and obviously, we swam really well. Our kids stepped up.”

The Trojans set the tone for the meet with back-to-back wins in the 200-yard medley relays. Tenley Wilkins, Karlie Dodd, Kayla Fischer and Lexi Stuart took first in the girls race with a time of 1:48.16, while the boys quartet of Henry Lyness, Isaac Lewis, Nikhil Iyer and Anthony Cuadros hit the wall in 1:35.58.

Phipps then got her day started with a blistering 1:48.98 in the 200 free, shattering the old county standard set by Center Grove’s Kristen Nunnelly in 2010. She then knocked off one of the two oldest meet marks remaining, going 54.20 in the fly to top the 55.74 clocked by ex-Trojan Michelle McKeehan in 2005.

She later joined Stuart, Addyson Matern and Wilkins in winning the 200 freestyle relay in a meet-record 1:35.66, then closed the meet by anchoring the 400 free relay, teaming with Matern, Clara Brandon and Izzie Ferguson to go 3:30.58. Both of the prior records had been set just last year (Center Grove in the 200, Franklin in the 400).

“I knew they were kind of reachable,” Phipps said of the old meet records. “I went to (junior nationals) last weekend, so I knew I was in shape. The coaches let me suit up, so I was excited. I might not be able to swim these events again — I might change my lineup come sectional time — so I knew I had to rock it, and I was ready to just go those fast times and see what I could do.”

Stuart (24.33) led a 1-2-3 sweep of the 50 free for the Center Grove girls, and Dodd did the same in the 100 breaststroke (1:06.29). Ferguson was first in the 500 freestyle (5:18.11).

In the boys meet, Lyness led the way for Center Grove with convincing wins in the 200 individual medley (1:52.88) and the 100 freestyle (47.40). Max Hite was first in the 200 free (1:46.27) and 100 backstroke (54.35), Cuadros was victorious in the 50 and 500 freestyles with respective times of 22.14 seconds and 4:57.73 and Lewis edged Franklin’s Aleksandr Ries by two hundredths of a second (59.08 to 59.10) in the 100 breast.

Lewis, Gabe Argiris, Iyer and Hite rallied to finish first in the 200 freestyle relay (1:28.99), and the 400 free relay team of Mason Bridges, Cuadros, Hite and Lyness also came out on top (3:13.06).

Phipps and Lyness were named the top female and male swimmers of the meet.

The Grizzly Cub girls got wins from junior Lili Ratzlaff in the 200 IM (2:07.28) and the 100 freestyle (52.04) and from Jovie Mowrey in the 100 backstroke (1:01.02). For Franklin’s boys, Isaac Layton was first in the 100 butterfly (53.82).

“We swam really, really well,” Franklin coach Zach DeWitt said. “For where we are in the season — I don’t want to say we overachieved, but we certainly achieved up to expectations.”

Greenwood’s boys, led by a runner-up finish from freshman Emmanuel Jackson in the 50 free, were third with 290 points; Whiteland (244) was fourth and Indian Creek (127) fifth. Whiteland’s girls were third with 312 points, the Woodmen (262) fourth and the Braves (148) fifth.

With the first half of the season essentially in the rear-view mirror, the Trojans can start looking ahead and trying to improve some more between now and championship season in February. Smith expects to see a different-looking Grizzly Cub team than the one he and his team saw Saturday.

“We knew on paper heading into this, Franklin was really going to push us,” he said. “They’re just at a different point in their season and what they focus on, so we still know that we’ve got a job to do the second half of the season, because sectionals will be a different outcome.”

The more important meets are still ahead, but Phipps is pleased with where she is at this juncture and ready to scale the state podium in eight weeks’ time.

“It was good to kind of see where I’m at,” she said. “I definitely think I have to buckle down hard and really practice these next couple of weeks. I still have some things to work on, and I think if I just focus on those things, that (by) state I should be ready to go.”