INDIANAPOLIS — Competing on opposite ends of the pool, Rachel Sabotin and Olivia Morlok had different approaches to the 500-yard freestyle in Saturday’s Girls Swimming and Diving State Finals.
Morlok, a Columbus North junior swimming in Lane 8, went out fast and was in fifth place through most of the first half of the race. Sabotin, a Trinity Lutheran junior swimming in Lane 1, had a little slower start than usual and was in eighth most of the first 450 yards.
Over the final 50 meters, Sabotin overtook Morlok to finish seventh in 4 minutes, 59.53 seconds.
“I don’t really know what happened,” said Sabotin, who finished fourth in the 500 freestyle last year. “I just didn’t have a great race today. But it’s definitely something to work toward for next year. It gets me working harder to try to move back up there.”
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Morlok finished eighth in 5:00.35. She has no regrets about going out fast the first half of the race.
“That’s pretty much how I attack all my races,” Morlok said. “I just like to see what I can do at the beginning and try to hold on at the end. (Making the top eight has) been my goal ever since I was ninth last year, so it’s exciting to do it this year,” Morlok said.
South Bend St. Joseph’s sophomore Mary Catherine Pruitt won the 500 freestyle in 4:49.42.
The 500 freestyle was the second event of the day for both Sabotin and Morlok. Earlier in the afternoon, Sabotin finished seventh in the 200 individual medley in 2:04.18.
“I was hoping to go a little bit faster than that today,” Sabotin said. “I messed up a couple of my turns on that, but I’m still really happy with how I did, especially for the first year and not really knowing what to expect. Making it back in the top eight in both events this year was a good accomplishment for me.”
Sabotin, a Columbus resident who is the lone girl on Trinity’s swim team, was competing in the 200 IM in the postseason for the first time this year after swimming the 200 freestyle the past two years.
“She’s become a much more diversified swimmer with the IM, working on all of her strokes,” said her father and coach, Doug Sabotin. “We’re just proud of a great weekend for her and for Trinity Lutheran.”
Meanwhile, Morlok swam in the consolation heat of the 200 freestyle and finished 15th in 1:56.05.
“I was just excited to make it back in that because I was seeded 19th going into the (prelims),” Morlok said. “So I knew I was going to have to push it to make that top 16.”
Morlok slid into that 16th spot with her 1:53.72 prelim swim, making the cut to Saturday by eight-hundreths of a second.
“She did a great job,” North coach Logan Schaefer said. “Coming into finals and consolation, it’s really about racing to trying to get your hand on the wall. She put herself in a place to do that today and ended up dropping some time from her prelim swim (in the 500 freestyle).”
Three other Bull Frogs competed in the prelims on Friday. Junior Betsy King finished 18th in the 100 freestyle (52.24) and 19th in the 50 freestyle (24.21), and junior Erica Samuel took 24th in the 500 freestyle (5:12.87).
King, Samuel, sophomore Riddhi Garg and Morlok finished 28th in the 200 freestyle relay (1:42.81).
“It’s a challenging meet,” Schaefer said. “Next time we come into this meet in that position, we need to just step up a little bit more and be ready on Friday. But our girls took a lot away from this meet this weekend, and we’re excited about coming back here next year.”
Top-ranked Carmel, led by three individual and three relay champions, coasted to its 33rd consecutive state team championship with 413 points. Franklin finished second with 167 1/2.
