It was a bittersweet day for the Columbus North and Columbus East girls swimmers.
North qualified a pair of swimmers to the state meet, but the Bull Frogs and Olympians each had some near-misses. Meanwhile, Trinity Lutheran’s Rachel Sabotin continued her string of sectional titles.
Sabotin, a Columbus resident, won the 200-yard individual medley in 2 minutes, 2.96 seconds. A newcomer to the 100 butterfly, she captured that event in 55.78.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Sabotin said. “(East Central’s) Kyra Hall won this last year and is a really great butterflier, so I didn’t know how it was going to end up. This is the first time I’ve swum the 100 butterfly in a bigger meet, and I just wanted to have fun.”
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
North senior Betsy King defended her title in the 50 freestyle in 24.19.
“Prelims, I was just trying to make it back in the top eight and have a warmup for today, and then going into today, I was like, ‘OK, I have to get ready. I’m going to win it,’ and we’ll see how it goes,” King said.
Another Bull Frog senior, Erica Samuel won the 500 freestyle after finishing second to Sabotin last year. Samuel swam 5:03.29, while senior teammate Erica Samuel was second in 5:06.74, just 1.21 seconds off the state cut standard.
“I knew that my teammate Erica (Samuel) was in the lane right next to me, so I knew that me and her would put in a really good race,” Morlok said. “I knew that hopefully, however it happened, we’d both be under the cut and be able to go together, so that was kind of my mindset going in.”
Morlok also finished second in the 200 freestyle in 1:55.89. King took second in the 100 freestyle in 52.38, just 17-hundreths of a second off the state cut.
“They both had great performances,” North coach Logan Schaefer said. “Our goal is to be faster next week for however many swims we get.”
The Bull Frogs also finished second in the 200 freestyle (1:39.63) and 400 freestyle (3:36.23) relays.
“We wanted to be a little bit better,” Schaefer said. “We were really happy with the way we finished the (400 freestyle) relay.”
North finished third in the team standings with 349 points. Bloomington South won with 441 to 356 1/2 for Bloomington North.
East junior Cloie McDonald qualified for Tuesday’s Bloomington South Diving Regional She finished second Saturday with a school-record 360.85.
McDonald, who was competing in the sectional for the first time, put in an inward 1 1/2 dive while warming up.
“I threw a new dive in warmups this morning, and that helped me get my degree of difficulty up,” McDonald said. “Then, just staying confident and consistent on every dive. I was nervous at first, but after we started warming up, it kind of died down a little bit. I just focused on each dive individually.”
East’s 200 medley relay team of Karissa Miller, Marin Wieneke, Ellie Proffitt and Jennifer Utterback swam a school-record 1:53.34 in finishing fourth. The same quartet took third in the 200 medley relay (1:41.00), and Wieneke was third in the 100 breaststroke (1:10.40).
The Olympians finished sixth as a team with 198 points.
“The girls were ready, and they swam really well,” East coach Jill Arnholt said. “It’s hard to come back (from Thursday’s prelims). It’s all a mind game to swim faster, but they did good. I’m proud of them.”
