Columbus North senior Chase McQueen was a double winner and junior diver Kaemon Jiles was a winner at the Conference Indiana boys swimming and diving championships at North on Saturday.
McQueen won the 200 individual medley in 1:57.46 and the 100 freestyle in 48.68. Being a senior, McQueen was excited to win two events but was disappointed that the Bull Frogs did not come away with the team title. North (438 points) placed second behind Bloomington South (512).
“It feels good to be a senior for sure, but I wish we could have come through as a team,” McQueen said. “I was happy with the way I swam but have more to do.”
McQueen posted his best times of the year, winning both the 200 IM and 100 freestyle by almost a full second each.
He’s looking forward to being able to compete in his home pool again during the sectional meet.
“With sectional coming up, I would like to win sectional as a team and get as many as we can to state,” McQueen said. “We have been striving for that all year and individually I want to do the best I can to provide for the team.”
Jiles, who won the league’s 1-meter diving title for the third straight year, set a school record by scoring 474.70 points.
“It feels really good that I get to keep the conference title,” Jiles said. “That’s really exciting. It threw me off a little when I hit my head at the bottom of the pool and was a little dazed, but I shook it off and came back.”
Jiles topped his previous record by quite a bit but thinks he has room to improve.
“By sectional I want to be close to 500,” he said. “I just want to break my record again and to improve on my 26th place (from last year) at state.”
Terre Haute South was third in the team standings (245 points) and Terre Haute North was fourth (204). Franklin Central, Perry Meridian, Bloomington North and Southport rounded out the bottom four.
McQueen and Jiles were the only individual winners for the Bull Frogs on Saturday, but North also won the 200 yard free relay in 1:29.92. Members of that team were Angel Torres Martinez, Adam Zhuang, Jared Imlay and McQueen. North placed second in the other two relay races.
Placing second for Columbus North individually were Zhuang in the 100 breaststroke, Sam Russell in the 500 free and Imlay in the 200 free.
“I told the swimmers they did not wake up to get second place in the conference,” North coach Bridger Bell said. “That was the feeling all around. We wanted to win; (Bloomington South) swam great and beat us. We had some good swims, but we also had some bad swims.
“Chase will swim much better in three weeks, and for Kaemon, that was great for him to win again. He was just shy of the conference record. … (South) peaked today, and we are going to peak at sectional.”
