THORNTON — Year after year, the records continue to fall at the Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center and Class 4A swimmers around Colorado will certainly keep that in mind knowing the state swimming and diving championships will be at the Thornton venue for the next few seasons.
Saturday’s championships were fast … really fast. Four classification records were set in the meet, won by Valor Christian for the first time after the Eagles wrestled the title away from two-time champion Evergreen.
It started at the outset of the meet, as Valor’s 200 medley relay team turned in a time of 1 minute, 45.31 seconds. Manitou Springs broke last year’s mark on Friday and Saturday, too, but it was the Eagles who were good as gold.
Valor’s Brooke Stenstrom also set the 4A 50 free mark at 23.22 seconds — it was her own record to begin with — while the 100 butterfly also featured a pair of record-setters on Saturday. Cheyenne Mountain’s Cat Wright swam faster than her 2015 record performance, but St. Mary’s Academy’s Alex Reddington took first place honors with a 55.05-second swim.
Finally, Cheyenne Mountain paced the field in the 400 free relay at 3:27.40 — 1.6 ticks faster than the 2013 Evergreen foursome in that race.
School records were likely numerous, but Silver Creek polished off five school standards and nearly a sixth. The 200 free relay team of seniors Jenna Latsko and Laura Caro and sophomores Meghan Magill and Brandi Vu made the school record at 1:40.62, and Vu got her name back up on the board in the 200 individual medley at 2:11.81.
Sara Findley achieved a new standard in the 100 free (54.39 seconds), and Nikki Schlegel’s 100 backstroke in prelims (59.29 seconds) also will be board material.
“I was really looking to drop my personal best and I just really pushed each of my strokes and tried to bring it home,” said Vu, just a sophomore. “I really came in (to the meet) with a new mindset of being aggressive but having fun.”
“I definitely had really high expectations for myself because for my club, we’re going to sectionals pretty soon and this was sort of the last chance I had to qualify for that,” Findley said. “I qualified in my 100 and got super-close in my 200. I’m proud of that.”
Adam Dunivan: dunivana@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/AdamDunivan24
