The Columbus North boys and girls swimmers haven’t had many big time swings this season.
Bull Frogs coach Logan Schaefer has noticed that consistency, and that was the case again Tuesday night. North continued to make slight improvements in a 147-36 boys win and a 121-65 girls victory at Columbus East.
“We’re swimming more consistently,” Schaefer said. “We’re putting up consistent performances week to week and getting better week to week.”
The Bull Frog boys won all 12 events. Nick Green was a double winner, taking the 200-yard individual medley in 2 minutes, 4.33 seconds and the 500 freestyle in 5:01.95.
Other individual winners for the North boys were Evan Patterson in the 200 freestyle (1:49.73), Ayush Panda in the 50 freestyle (23.89), Grant Fehribach in diving (242.25), Sam Russell in the 100 butterfly (54.56), Thomas Goble in the 100 freestyle (50.28), Paxton Rush in the 100 backstroke (1:01.38) and Albert Nusawardhana in the 100 breaststroke (1:05.03).
The Bull Frogs swept the 200 medley (1:41.42), 200 freestyle (1:29.75) and 400 freestyle (3:16.51) relays.
“Our relay times showed tonight that we’ve improved from last year, already,” Green said. “I was really proud of our team that we were able to improve on our times. It shows that if we put in the work, we get the results.”
For the North girls, Olivia Morlok won the 200 freestyle (2:02.17) and 500 freestyle (5:27.04), and Betsy King took the 50 freestyle (24.61) and 100 freestyle (54.08). Karlie Brown captured the 200 IM (2:24.27), and Kaitlyn Niebrugge won the 100 backstroke (1:03.24).
The Bull Frogs won the girls 200 freestyle (1:47.64) and 400 freestyle (3:52.31) relays.
“I’ve been working really hard in practice, and I could definitely tell,” King said. “My teammates have improved a lot, too.”
The East girls came through with four event wins. Whitley Eicher led the Olympians with victories in the 100 butterfly (1:00.97) and 100 breaststroke (1:14.80).
East’s Maggie Gregory took the diving competition (177.75). Lizzy Frazier, Marin Weineke, Eicher and Jennifer Utterback opened the meet with a win in the 200 medley relay (1:59.54.)
“Our real push tonight was for us to be aggressive and really shoot for best times,” East girls coach Jill Arnholt said. “We wanted to try to get a little bit closer to North and give them a good meet. One of the things we take pride in is pushing ourselves as hard as we can in every swim, and I think the girls really did that tonight.”
DJ Rhodes finished second in diving (190.10) to lead the East boys. Ryan Singer took third in the 50 freestyle (24.00), and Thomas Voils was third in the 100 breaststroke (1:16.09).
East coach David Fribley said his team’s focus was on its remaining two meets this week.
“So our guys’ goal tonight was to get in and get there swims and try to have time improvements,” Fribley said. “The way we downplayed this whole meet, I thought they swam fantastic.”
