Columbus East’s Brady Beyer swims the 100-yard breaststroke during Saturday’s Boys Swimming State Finals at IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
INDIANAPOLIS — The final swim of Brady Beyer’s high school career proved emblematic of his last meet as a whole.
Not terrible, but not up to the expectations he’d set coming in.
The Columbus East senior finished the 100-yard breaststroke in 58.45 seconds during Saturday’s consolation final, good for 15th place. Though Beyer’s time was nearly three-fourths of a second slower than he’d gone in Friday’s preliminaries, he did move up one position after earning the 16th and final advancing spot.
“The breast was just a wrap on how the weekend’s kind of gone,” Beyer said of his Saturday effort. “It wasn’t too strong in one area; it wasn’t too bad in one area. It was just kind of a middle-of-the-pack swim and a middle-of-the-pack time.”
Earlier in the afternoon, Beyer also placed 15th in the 500 freestyle, hitting the wall with a time of 4:41.57. He had been about three-and-a-half seconds faster on Friday, when he qualified 14th.
“For whatever reason,” he said, “from what my coaches were saying I just looked off; like, my tempo and my stroke.”
Columbus East’s Brady Beyer swims the 500-yard freestyle during Saturday’s Boys Swimming State Finals at IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
Columbus East’s Brady Beyer swims the 500-yard freestyle during Saturday’s Boys Swimming State Finals at IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
Columbus East’s Brady Beyer checks his time after swimming the 500-yard freestyle during Saturday’s Boys Swimming State Finals at IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
Despite coming up short of the goals he’d set for himself before the meet, Beyer still enjoyed his overall state meet experience. After spending last winter training with a club team in California, he was excited for the opportunity to be a part of the atmosphere at IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium again.
Beyer competed at the state meet as a sophomore, finishing 13th in the 500 freestyle and 16th in the 100 breaststroke. This time around was more rewarding, because he wasn’t alone. The Olympians qualified a pair of relay teams for the meet — sophomore Misha Machavariani and juniors Judah Nickoll and Cavan Stilson joined Beyer to form the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams. The quartet placed 25th in both events on Friday.
Also competing for the Olympians on Saturday was sophomore Gavin Day, who was eliminated after the morning preliminary round of the 1-meter diving competition. Day finished with a score of 147.05 for five dives.
“We’ve got a lot of inexperience, but we got a lot of kids up here this year, so that was good — and Brady made that happen,” East coach Doug Trueblood said. “Brady brought guys along with him and raised their level.”
“It’s kind of different than club swimming in a way of my results aren’t the only ones that matter,” Beyer said of the high school environment. “I don’t think, at a championship meet, I’ve cared so much about other people’s performances.”
Having concluded his prep career, Beyer will move on to swim for Indian River State College, a junior college team in Florida. He’s hoping to use his time there as a pathway to a larger school.
“They’ve had a lot of success with having a kid for one or two years, and then they’ll transfer to a bigger school and do well there,” Beyer said. “It’s just an extra growth period for kids that maybe aren’t hitting their stride junior or senior year.”
