Columbus East’s Ellie Proffitt reacts to winning the 50-yard freestyle race during the girls swimming sectional at Columbus North High School. Tommy Walker/For The Republic
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
At the midway point of the 50-yard freestyle final in Monday’s Columbus North Sectional, Ellie Proffitt took a quick glance to see where she stood.
When the Columbus East senior noticed that Bloomington North’s Karen Tabbal was neck and neck with her, Proffitt turned on the jets.
Proffitt powered to the wall to finish in 24.53 seconds, 16-hundredths of a second ahead of Tabbal, to earn the event’s automatic berth to this weekend’s Girls Swimming State Finals.
“Off the wall, I took a breath, and I saw (Tabbal) right there, and I just knew I had to get my head down and keep going,” Proffitt said. “So I just put it into overdrive and went all out and didn’t really know I had won until I saw it up on the board.”
Proffitt was the top seed in the event coming into the sectional. She then swam the fastest time in Saturday’s preliminaries with a 24.97.
“There was a lot of added pressure because I knew people were coming after me,” Proffitt said. “But I was super excited because it meant it was going to be a good race, and I could prove to them that I’m just as good as I have ever been, if not better.”
“She had an absolute fantastic race,” East coach Jill Arnholt added. “She owned it from the beginning and just dominated through the whole swim. I was just super proud of her.”
Proffitt is the first Olympian girls swimmer to qualify for state since Cortney VanLiew in 2015. Gabbie Meier, who broke her own school record in winning the the sectional diving title on Saturday, made it to state in diving last year and will try to do it again with a top-eight finish in tonight’s Jasper Diving Regional.
“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Proffitt said. “I was ecstatic. I was super excited to make my team proud of me and be able to do that for them.”
Proffitt also finished third in the 100 butterfly in 59.43. Karissa Miller took fourth in the 100 freestyle (55.46) and fifth in the 100 backstroke (1:04.06), and Josie Havenaar was sixth in the 200 individual medley (2:26.15) and seventh in the 100 backstroke 1:05.59. Claire Brooks finished eighth in the 100 butterfly (1:08.18).
Miller, Havenaar, Proffitt and Kerigan Greathouse finished third in both the 200 medley (1:57.43) and 200 freestyle 1:43.37) relays. Kira VanValkenburg, Halle Herbert, Meier and Claire Brooks were fourth in the 400 freestyle relay (4:06.96).
“We had a fantastic sectional, one of the best sectionals we’ve ever had,” Arnholt said. “The girls came on Saturday and swam their hearts out and had great drops, and then they came back today tougher than nails and did it again. We had great swims today.”
The Olympians scored 277.5 points to finish third in the team standings behind Bloomington North (457) and Bloomington South (453).
“We’re just delighted with the team,” Arnholt said. “They’ve really come together and supported each other and pushed each other throughout the season, so I think that’s helped.”
Columbus North finished fourth with 236 points. The Bull Frogs were led by third-place finishes from Paige Maddox in the 500 freestyle (5:38.40) and from Brooke Meek, Maddox, Lauren Brault and Karissa Bevis in the 400 freestyle relay (3:56.91).
“We swam a lot better today,” North coach Brett Findley said. “We swam well on Saturday, and our goal was to come back today and race and drop more time, and we did. So I was really proud them. It’s not easy to do with the alternate schedule, but they came back and swam even faster.”
Maddox also finished fifth (2:06.32) and Meek sixth (2:07.49) in the 200 freestyle. Bevis took fifth in the 100 freestyle (58.51) and sixth in the 50 freestyle (26.68), Brault was seventh in the 200 IM (2:27.57), Meek finished seventh in the 100 freestyle (58.70) and Ella Gray Partin took eighth in diving (265.20).
Bevis, Kara Buntin, Emma Walker and Meek were fifth in the 200 freestyle relay (1:47.67).
“We have a great group of seniors with Brooke and Lauren and Paige and Emma, and for them to finish the way they did, I was really proud of them. I’m glad they were able to go out their senior year with some really great swims.”
