Columbus North’s Daniel Utterback takes off during the 20y yard freestyle consolation race at the Boys Swimming and Diving State Finals at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis on Saturday, Feb. 26,2022.
Rob Baker | For The Republic
INDIANAPOLIS — Things couldn’t have gone much better for Daniel Utterback and a few of his Columbus North teammates at Friday’s preliminaries of the Boys Swimming State Finals.
Then on Saturday, they got even better.
Utterback bettered his seeds in both of his individual events, and the Bull Frogs improved in both of their relays they swam at state
“What was a great Friday night turned out to be an even more exciting Saturday,” North coach Brett Findley said. “Many of them capped their high school careers on a very positive note. One of our seniors, David Fry, said, ‘Coach, this went about as well as it could have,’ and I couldn’t agree more.”
Utterback, a junior, finished 14th in the 200-yard freestyle in 1 minute, 43.29 seconds. He came back with a 10th-place finish in the 100 freestyle in 46.42.
“I’m very satisfied,” Utterback said. “After sectional, I was very worried, but after (Friday) night, dropping some time and getting to the finals individually was a huge relief.”
Utterback, sophomore Isaac Proffitt and seniors Matthew Goble and Fry finished 11th in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:26.62. In the final event, Utterback, Goble, senior Carlos Fabian Aguilar and Fry placed 10th in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:11.87.
“I’m really proud of all of our guys,” Utterback said. “It’s hard to do that again the next day, but we ended up doing it again.”
Carmel won the team title with 381 points to 247 for runner-up Zionsville. The Bull Frogs finished 17th with 36 points, an improvement over their 23rd-place finish last season.
“We had a great day,” Findley said. “I’m glad they finished as well as they wanted. It was a wonderful ending, and I’m happy to be part of the season for these guys.”
