In the midst of a long and grueling swimming season of training and competition, Saturday was a day for Columbus North and two other schools to have a little fun.
The annual Columbus North Relays features events such as a 100-yard freestyle relay swam underwater with jeans; a 100 medley relay that includes two swimmers, a coach and a parent; and a 400 freestyle relay with fins attached to the swimmers’ feet.
“It’s always a little bit of a break, going from two meets a week to maybe a little less going into the Christmas season and then eventually our tournament season,” senior Caroline Swenson said. “It allows us to readjust and refocus.”
Floyd Central swept the boys and girls titles, scoring 416 and 402 points, respectively. The Bull Frogs outscored Bloomington North 398-368 for second in the boys meet, while the Cougars edged Columbus North 394-386 for second on the girls side.
The Bull Frogs, who won six boys relays and the girls diving relay, were competing for the first time since Tuesday’s dual-meet wins against Columbus East.
“We just had some things after that meet that we needed to sharpen up, particularly our relays,” North coach Logan Schaefer said. “We had a lot of opportunities to do that today. It’s all about the relays, bringing the energy. We made an improvement throughout the week with that.”
Jose Gamez, Ayush Panda, Aidan McAlister and Nick Green won the boys 500-yard crescendo (50-100-150-200) relay in 4 minutes, 31.19 seconds. Christopher Lee, Sam Russell, Jared Carroll and Rafael Spear followed with a win in the more traditional 200 medley relay in 1:41.11.
Carroll and Russell teamed with Schaefer and parent Kevin Sherlock to win the 100 medley relay in a meet-record 48.09. Spear, Panda, Carroll and Paxton Rush took the 100 freestyle relay in 42.87
Russell, David Fry, Joseph Oraye and Carlos Torres Martinez won the 200 breaststroke relay in 2:06.87. Carroll, Lee, Green and Russell captured the 400 freestyle relay with fins in 3:06.56.
“I thought it was a lot of fun,” McAlister said. “I thought it was really cool that we were able to do different things than we normally do. I normally do long distance, and I got to do things a little bit shorter today.”
The lone win for the Bull Frog girls came in the diving competition, where Ella Anderson and Naomy Argueta Ventura combined to score 212.40 points. They finished second in nine relays.
“I thought it was fun to see what we really could do and push our limits,” Swenson said. “Because it’s an unusual meet, a lot of people are put in something that they weren’t comfortable with, so it helped prepare them for maybe the next meet.”
That next meet will be Saturday against Fishers and Bloomington South in the Christmas Classic at IUPUI’s Indiana University Natatorium.
“I think they competed really well,” Schaefer said. “Some of the advantages of doing some of these 200 relays, doing four 50s of the same stroke, give us a great idea of where our depth stands in some of our events. I was really happy to see multiple people across our team swim really well in specific strokes and specific events.”
