Columbus East’s Gavin Day performs a dive during Saturday’s state finals at the IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
Chris Williams | For The Republic
INDIANAPOLIS — After not making it past the preliminaries at last year’s Boys Swimming and Diving State Finals, Gavin Day wanted to have a little more fun this year.
Not only did the Columbus East junior have a blast on Saturday, he came away with an 11th-place finish with 422.65 points.
“I was pretty satisfied with where I placed,” Day said. “My dives weren’t on point today, but I still had fun and everything. This year, I really wanted to focus on having fun because last year, I was too hard on myself. This year, I had fun, and I dove pretty well.”
Columbus East ‘s Gavin Day performs a dive during Saturday’s state finals at the IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
Chris Williams | For The Republic
Day was in 10th place after five dives, when the field was cut from 32 to 20. He was in 12th after eight dives, when it was cut from 20 to 16.
Over the final three dives, which took place during the normal break in the swimming finals and consolations, Day moved back uo to 11th. His score was a little off the 478.45 he put up at Tuesday’s Jasper Diving Regional.
“They’re a little bit harsher with scoring at state,” Day said. “I had some good dives and some OK dives. It was good.”
Columbus East ‘s Gavin Day is introduced as a finalist in the diving competition during Saturday’s state finals at the IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
Chris Williams | For The Republic
“It was an amazing day for Gavin,” East coach Doug Trueblood said. “He hit a lot of awesome dives. He threw some hard dives out there this weekend, and I was impressed with his mental toughness. Gavin has grown a lot from last season to this season, and it’s great to see all the hard work he’s put in. He has another year to continue to move up.”
East also swam in the consolation heat of the 400-yard freestyle relay on Saturday. Senior Cavan Stilson, juniors Keaton Stephenson and Misha Machavariani and senior Judah Nickoll were disqualified because of an early start.
“The guys handled that call with a lot of grace and a lot of maturity,” Tueblood said. “They swam well, and to get news, ‘Hey, we got DQed,’ that’s a heartbreaker. I am extremely proud of how they handled it and picked each other up. They just took it in stride, and I’m probably as a coach more proud of how they handled the adversity of it than the time drops. It just shows the young men that they’re growing into being.”
The Olympians, who swam a school-record 3 minutes, 12.34 seconds in Friday night’s prelims, had finished 15th in 3:12.92 on Saturday before they got word of the DQ.
“It was a very unfortunate thing for the boys because they worked so hard,” Trueblood said. “Sports teaches life lessons. I thought the boys did a great job. From last Thursday to today, we dropped five seconds and set that record twice. We’re continuing to drop time and move up, and it’s a bummer that we were DQed. I’m proud that we were pushing it. You can’t complain about that.”
Also on Friday, East’s Todd Hundley, Machavariani, Nickoll and Stilson finished 17th in the 200 medley relay prelims in 1:37.90. Columbus North’s Diego Cotero Tapia, Aarush Mahato, Isaac Proffitt and Jude Abdallah took 21st in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:29.41. Cotero Tapia was 28th in the 100 butterfly in 52.87, and Abdallah finished 30th in the 50 freestyle in 22.27.
