Gabbie Meier
Something about the Columbus North Sectional brings out the best in Gabbie Meier.
Last year, the Columbus East diver set the school’s 11-dive record with a 399.0 in winning the sectional. Saturday morning, the sophomore shattered that record, scoring a 422.2 to defend her title.
“My first warmup was was rough,” Meier said. “I was stopping on a couple dives, but my (diving) coach (Nancy Snyder) said a bad warmup is a great meet, so that worked out. I got through my first dives. I was a little bit nervous on those just because of the warmup that I had, but I did pretty good on them, so I got more confidence. I just started having fun.”
Meier advances to Tuesday’s Jasper Diving Regional. If she finishes in the top eight, she would qualify for state for a second consecutive year.
While the diving finals were held Saturday morning, the afternoon consisted of swimming prelims, which were postponed from Thursday. The swimming finals were moved to 5:30 p.m. Monday.
East’s Ellie Proffitt has the fastest qualifying time in the 50-yard freestyle (24.97 seconds) and second-fastest in the 100 butterfly (1:01.61). The Olympians qualified second in the 200 medley (1:57.39) and 200 freestyle (1:47.21) relays and fourth in the 400 freestyle relay (4:15.20).
Also making the finals from East were Karissa Miller in fourth in the 100 freestyle (57.32) and fifth in the 100 backstroke (1:05.70), Josie Havenaar in fifth in the 200 individual medley (2:27.58) and seventh in the 100 backstroke (1:06.58) and Claire Brooks in seventh in the 100 butterfly (1:07.70).
For the host Bull Frogs, Paige Maddox (5:37.69) and Lauren Brault (5:45.37) are third and fourth in the 500 freestyle, and Maddox is fifth in the 200 freestyle (2:06.81). Karissa Bevis is sixth in the 50 freestyle (26.61) and 100 freestyle (58.43), Brooke Meek is seventh in the 100 freestyle (58.77) and eighth in the 200 freestyle (2:09.19) and Brault is eighth in the 200 IM (2:29.34). North also is third in the 400 freestyle relay (4:07.84) and fifth in the 200 freestyle relay (1:50.87).
The winner in each swimming event and any others meeting the state standard on Monday qualify for next weekend’s state finals. Beyond those qualifiers from the state’s 20 sectionals, the next-best times are added until a full field of 32 entrants are met for each event.
