Boys’ swimming and diving crushed long time rivals, Rockhurst, on Saturday Sept 26 at the CoMo Invitational. The Hawklets finished in second place, 75 points behind RBHS. Two of the Bruin’s relays came in first overall, and the third relay came in second place by a mere hundredth of a second.
RBHS had seven swimmers place in the top five for an event, and there was an RBHS swimmer in every A final, the fastest of the three finals, according to head coach Laura Wacker they were the only school to boast such an accomplishment. The team gained a whopping seven more state championship qualifying swims.
Seven again proves to be a lucky number at this meet, since seven new team records were set at the Mizzou Recreational center. Senior Alex Tschopp provided these in the 200 yard freestyle, the 100 yard butterfly and in the 100 yard freestyle as the lead leg of the 400 yard freestyle relay. The 400 yard freestyle relay also acheived a school record as a whole, as did the 200 yard medley relay. The other two records come from sophomore Zachary Lorson in the 100 yard breaststroke and from sophomore Dane Florea in the 200 yard individual medley.
“A big meet like this really gives the coaches a better opportunity to watch the guys perform in a high stress situation.” Wacker said “We learned a lot of things we can take back to practice and work on. The competition at this meet was very eye opening for the guys. The whole state is a lot faster this year.”
Despite the fact there was only an hour break between preliminaries and finals, Wacker said her swimmers performed impressively, and she stressed how important getting a few great swims in was. Lorson supplied four of these great swims and placed second in both of his individual events.
“I thought my swims were pretty good seeing that in both individual events I had best times.” Lorson said, “I think the team’s performance overall was outstanding with all the new state cuts and all the stepping up to score points I don’t think we could’ve done better.”
While Lorson was pleased with his own performance, he also relished the team’s defeat of Rockhurst. He says the victory was made even sweeter considering their loss to the Hawklets at the same meet last year. Junior Paul Cover shares his teammates excitement, but will not rest on his laurels the next time RBHS faces off with Rockhurst.
“This win is a great sign of things to come. Nothing is ever guaranteed, but winning CoMo definitely means we’re on the right track.” Cover said. “It feels good to beat Rockhurst, but we can’t rely on being able to beat them in the future. They’re still an incredible team, and will definitely be a challenge come state.