For several years now, the regular season-ending dual boys swim meet between Columbus East and Bloomington North has been a competitive one.
The Cougars, who usually compete with the likes of Columbus North and Bloomington South in the sectional the following week, have traditionally put their swimmers in “off” events in the dual against the Olympians to make the meet more competitive.
That was the case on Monday night, although Bloomington North still came away with a 105-77 victory.
“I’m overall happy with the way we swam tonight,” East coach Dave Fribley said. “They moved around a little bit, trying to balance the races out. That’s what we hoped for, and that’s what happened.”
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The Olympians won a pair of events. Mason Curry swam a personal best by three seconds to win the 200-yard individual medley in 2 minutes, 10.88 seconds, edging the Cougars’ Blake Hatcher by six-hundreths of a second.
“I didn’t think I could pull that off, so I’m proud of myself there,” Curry said. “I didn’t really feel good going into it, but coming out of it, I felt really good. I’m hoping to get the (100 butterfly school) record in the sectional.”
Curry finished second in the 100 butterfly in 55.92.
East’s other win came from Branson Young, who took the 100 breaststroke in 1:09.83.
“I wasn’t really expecting it, to be honest,” Young said. “I’ve been out the last couple of practices due to medical issues, so I wasn’t really expecting a (personal record) tonight. But the fact that I did just kind of pumps me up getting ready for sectional time.”
Young also finished second in the 200 freestyle in 2:04.42. Other second-place finishers were Chad Kelly in the 50 freestyle (23.59) and 100 freestyle (52.23), John Roberts in the diving competition (146.40), Justin Borowski in the 500 freestyle (5:36.35) and Bryce Eckelman in the 100 backstroke (1:08.51). Dathan Wolf took third in the 50 freestyle (23.59) and 100 freestyle (56.64), and Rylan Perkins was third in the 100 backstroke (1:44.38).
East also finished second in the 200 medley (2:03.58), 200 freestyle (1:43.77) and 400 freestyle (3:46.95) relays.
“We had some really good times again,” Fribley said. “We started off with five out of six PRs in the first two events and stayed kind of with that the rest of the night. We had a lot of good swims. They seemed like they were ready to swim tonight, and they went after the races because they were ready to swim.”
