PLAINFIELD — Two weeks after the Avon girls’ swimming team captured a sectional title, the boys’ team followed suit on Saturday.
“It’s a great feeling (to win sectionals),” Avon coach Jon Karr said. “It’s one of our many stops on our plan for the year. One of our main goals is next week and we did a great job of putting ourselves forward to next week and it should be pretty fun.”
Karr said the momentum began in the prelims.
“The way that our kids swam on Thursday night ... the numbers don’t lie,” Karr said. “We had too many numbers going our way to not win the meet, aside from major mistakes. I think that was kind of a relief for some of the guys. Today was to see how many we could move forward and move up to the state meet next week.”
Plainfield finished third at the competition.
“It was kind of a mixed bag for us today,” Plainfield coach Chris Cavanaugh said. “They had some pretty solid swims and I’m pretty happy with a lot of our younger guys. We were looking for some of our older guys to go a little bit faster. We took a gamble on not shaving everybody down and resting everybody. We are kind of on the bubble to see if some of the guys will be invited to state.”
Having such a young team, Cavanaugh was very excited about how they rose to the occasion Saturday.
“Thursday night we came out and had some great swims,” Cavanaugh said “The guys were dropping time like crazy. For a lot of our freshmen, it was their first big meet, first sectional meet, so I was very happy with that.”
Cavanaugh also said he was pleased with sophomore diver Aaron Lux’s fourth-place finish, allowing him to move on to regionals.
Avon kicked off the meet with some emphasis, as the team of Matt Stowe, Christian Lorenz, Grant Lewis, and Greg Sprout took the 200 medley relay. Parks Jones then won the 200 free and Lewis finished second in the 200 IM and the 100 fly.
Sprout and Stowe went first and second the 100 free. Jones won the 500 free and was part of the team, along with Sprout, Quinn McPhail, and Zackary Czerwonky, to win the 200 free relay.
Lorenz and Colin Mothersead went first and second in the 100 breast, while the team of Lewis, Stowe, Sprout, and Jones won the 400 free relay.
Plainfield’s Chris Tice finished third in the 100 fly and the 50 free, while Nick Allen took third in the 200 free.
Allen also took second in the 100 backstroke and was part of the second-place team in the 200 free relay, along with Tice, Dakota Rhodes, and James Pawlowski.
Tri-West’s Evan Cooper won the diving event.
Danville placed sixth, Tri-West took eighth, and Cascade finished ninth.
As for getting ready for the state meet, Karr said it’s business as usual for the Orioles that are advancing.
“It’s part of our preparation the whole time,” he said. “Five of our guys aren’t even shaved down yet and fully rested. To be able to be in that position is just a credit to these kids and this team. The way that we swam all year, we knew that we swam so well that we didn’t need to be completely all-out ready for this meet and move forward. Because of that, we’re going to do some serious noise-making next week at the state meet. A lot of teams are going to be pretty impressed with what we have here.”
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