Girls swimming
CG, Franklin rule sectional prelims
Host Center Grove and Franklin set themselves up for a white-knuckle showdown in Saturday’s sectional finals with their performances in preliminary races on Thursday evening. The two-time defending champion Trojans landed 23 of a possible 24 individual swimmers in championship finals along with their three relays, all of which head into Saturday seeded first. The Grizzly Cubs, meanwhile, put 22 individuals and three relays into A finals.
Greenwood and Whiteland also got all three of their relays into the top eight, with the Woodmen also getting five individuals into championship heats and the Warriors one. Indian Creek has just one relay swimming on Saturday but is also expected to rack up points in diving.
Individually, Center Grove’s Lara Phipps goes into the finals as the top seed in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle; teammate Karlie Dodd had the top prelim swim in the 100 breaststroke. For Franklin, Lili Ratzlaff (200 free), Emma Small (200 individual medley) and Reagan Graves (500 free) all earned No. 1 seeds. Mooresville’s Lylah Theriac was first in the 100 butterfly and backstroke.
Diving preliminaries will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, with swim and dive finals set for 1 p.m.
