INDIANAPOLIS — Rachel Sabotin, Olivia Morlok and Betsy King saved their best high school state meets for their last ones.
The trio of Columbus residents, all four-year state qualifiers, had their best state finishes on Saturday. Trinity Lutheran’s Sabotin finished third in both the 200-yard individual medley and 100 butterfly, while Columbus North’s Morlok took sixth in the 500 freestyle, and North’s King was 15th in the 100 freestyle.
Sabotin swam a personal-best and school-record 2 minutes, 2.35 seconds in the 200 IM in Saturday’s finals.
“I think it was a pretty good race,” Sabotin said. “I still think I have a few things I can work on in practice for college, but I’m happy with today.”
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The 100 butterfly was a new race for Sabotin this year, and she made the most of it. Sabotin, who was a three-time state qualifier in the 500 freestyle, switched to the butterfly this year and took third in 54.90, which was just above the personal-best and school-record 54.68 she swam in Friday’s preliminaries.
“My goal here was just to have fun,” Sabotin said. “It’s my senior year and the last time I’ll race high school. I just wanted to get up and see what I could do. Last year, I was seventh in both my races, so it was a pretty good step-up from last year.”
Morlok also swam a personal-best in Friday’s prelims, going 4:58.31 in the 500 freestyle. She swam 5:00.33 to finish sixth on Saturday.
“I hadn’t dropped time in that for two years, so getting back under 5:00 was definitely really exciting,” Morlok said. “(Friday) night, the goal was just to make top eight, and then today, you just come in and give it your best race and see how you place. That was a fun race and a fun state meet, and I’m excited for what I’ve been able to do these four years.”
King made it to the consolation heat in the 100 freestyle with a 52.39 on Friday and finished 15th in 52.79 on Saturday.
“I thought it was really cool because that was a goal of mine before coming into this meet — to try to make it back (to the finals or consolation heat),” King said. “Having the ability to make that second swim is awesome. The mindset going into today was trying my best and giving it my all. It’s the last swim of the season, the last swim of my high school career, and I wanted to leave it all out there. It was maybe not my best time ever, but definitely one of the best this year.”
King also finished 23rd in the 50 freestyle in 24.35, and Erica Samuel took 25th in the 500 freestyle in 5:14.48 in Friday’s prelims. King, Riddhi Garg, Bryleigh Shaffstall and Morlok were 23rd in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:40.25; and the Bull Frogs were disqualified in the 400 freestyle relay in the prelims.
“It was a great way to finish things off,” Schaefer said. “They both had big goals coming into this meet, and both of them accomplished them. Betsy going her best time and placing higher than she ever has, and then Betsy making it back, it was a great performance. We got really strong performances from Olivia and Betsy. We had really strong relay swims. It was a great performance for us.”
Carmel scored 426 1/2 points to 208 for runner-up Fishers to win its 34th consecutive state title. Trinity finished 17th with 32 points, and North tied for 24th with 15 points.
