BROWNSBURG — Covenant Christian boys’ swimming team ended its season in the consolation rounds of Saturday’s sectional swim meet at Brownsburg while Ben Davis will send one swimmer on to the state finals this weekend.
Warriors’ senior Clint McNamara ended the season and his career on a high note with a personal best and a school record breaking swim in the preliminary round of the 200 free with a time of 2:10.16 and followed Covenant coach Craig Bauer’s philosophy of improving every time in the pool.
“We don’t look at making it to state as our goal,” Bauer said. “We focus on bettering themselves and we make this a lifetime sport. This has to be something they enjoy and if they’re going to get better, it’s because they enjoy it. We’re going to make sure they work hard but they also enjoy it.”
The strategy is appropriate for a smaller school like Covenant Christian. The motivation to compete comes from the opportunity to get better each time and the Warriors did not fall short in that attempt, ending the season with their best effort yet.
“All the times entered for their swims were their best times. They bettered their times,” Bauer said. “They won in our own minds because they improved their times and they’ve been doing it throughout the whole year. We had a school record broken by Clint McNamara Thursday in the preliminaries and he had already broken the record earlier this year.”
For Ben Davis, the season is now in limbo as the Giants await the results to find out if they will be sending anyone to state. Regardless, there is still plenty to be excited about because alongside senior Cole Crouch, the other three members on the Giants’ 200 free relay team are sophomores Darrin Frazier, Caelen Pretty, and Jess Partin.
“Our 200 free relay team got up on our top-10 board back at Ben Davis and that list is top 10 in our school’s history,” Ben Davis coach George Fastrich said. “The nice thing is that we got those three guys back for the next two years.”
It isn’t a long shot for Ben Davis. There is a pretty good chance they will be sending swimmers next week as Partin is now second fastest all-time on the top-10 list for the 100 breaststroke. The IHSAA takes the winner of each sectional leaving 12 at-large bids before taking state qualifying times and placing swimmers by the fastest times from the sectional finals.
“I think we have a really good shot with Cole Crouch in the 50 freestyle,” Fastrich said. “He went last year as a junior and went a little bit faster in (sectional) preliminaries this year than he did last year, but it just depends on the other sectional and how fast kids did or did not swim, so we’re really just waiting to find out.”
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