FLOYDS KNOBS — Columbus East put together a strong performance at Tuesday’s Hoosier Hills Conference girls swim meet at Floyd Central.
The Olympians finished fourth, just two points behind third-place Bedford North Lawrence. East coach Jill Arnholt was happy with her team’s effort, but she’s certainly not satisfied considering what she expects of her squad.
“We swam well,” Arnholt said. “We swam right around our best times, so they swam well. I would’ve liked to have seen more ‘oompf.’ We were a little flat. I’d like to see us get a little more psyched up for these meets.”
Arnholt says she expects the Olympians to come out on fire in three weeks in the sectional at Columbus North.
“We are definitely to ramp up the volume for sectional,” she said. “I’m pleased with them, but I definitely think we can bring more at sectional.”
On Tuesday, East had eight individuals achieve top-eight performances, and all three relays were in the top five.
Two of those relays were runners-up. In the evening’s first event, Karissa Miller, Marin Wieneke, Maggie Johnson and Jennifer Utterback combined for a second-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. The Olympians were just 31-hundreths of a second off the championship pace of Floyd Central.
Later in the meet, Miller, Utterback, Johnson and Elizabeth Proffitt were second in the 200 freestyle relay.
“Our relays did well,” Arnholt said. “I was really pleased with all our relays.”
East’s top individual performance came in the final individual race of the meet. Marin Weineke finished third in the 100 breaststroke behind only New Albany’s Greer Manger and Jeffersonville’s Megan McEwen.
“I think this kind of prepared me for sectional, getting to race against such good competition,” Wieneke said.
Also for the Olympians, Utterback came in fourth in the 50 freestyle, Miller was fourth in the 100 backstroke, Johnson finished fifth in the 200 individual medley and 500 freestyle and Proffitt was eighth in the 200 freestyle. Utterback and Proffitt were fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 100 freestyle.
Jennings County finished eighth, but was just four points behind seventh-place Madison. The Panthers were paced by Reagan Brown, who placed sixth in the 100 backstroke. Brown, Grace Kirchner, Christina Henney and Leah Harriman combined to finish sixth in the 200 medley relay.
“I thought we did good,” Jennings coach Chaz Wilson said. “There are still some things we need to work on, but as a team, I thought we swam great, had some good times. They did the best they could.”
