Boys swimming: North rolls to victory

Columbus North used Monday’s boys swim meet against Plainfield as a chance to play around with its lineup in preparation of finalizing its postseason roster, and coach Logan Schaefer didn’t have much to complain about when looking at the results.

The Bull Frogs won 11 of the 12 events on their way to beating the Quakers 116-69 in the last regular-season meet of the year. North had three double-event winners in Sam Russell, Evan Patterson and Jared Carroll.

The Bull Frogs swept the top three spots in the 200-yard individual medley, with Patterson placing first in 2 minutes, 03.77 seconds, followed by teammates Nick Green and Aidan McAlister. Patterson also won the 500 freestyle in 5:07.24.

Carroll finished the 50 freestyle in 22.62 seconds to place first before touching the wall in 49.63 seconds for a first-place finish in the 100 freestyle.

Russell helped North take the top two places in the 200 freestyle and 100 backstroke. He finished the 200 freestyle in 1:48.22, with teammate Thomas Goble placing second. Russell clocked a 56.8 in the 100 backstroke that put him ahead of another second-place teammate in Ayush Panda.

“Jared Carroll and Sam Russell had two very good swims tonight and gave us some signs that they’re right where they need to be heading into championship season,” Schaefer said.

Other individual first-place finishes for the Bull Frogs came from Green in the 100 breaststroke (1:06.59) and Grant Fehribach in the diving competition (227.55). North swept the the 200 medley (1:43.86), 200 freestyle (1:36.28) and 400 freestyle (3:19.54) relays.

The Bull Frogs will be back in the pool on Feb. 15 for the North Sectional prelims. Schaefer said his boys swimmers are in a good spot heading into postseason competition.

“I think we’re right where we want to be,” Schaefer said. “(We’re) finishing up and heading into our sharpening phase where we start to get mentally focused and continue to sharpen those things as we get closer to the sectional and the state championships.”