Wawasee Sports Wrap – Dec. 15
Warriors Score Second At Swim Invite
In its home Invitational Saturday, the Wawasee boys swim team scored 294 to claim second place. South Bend St. Joseph’s, powered by seven championship swims, easily clinched the title with 424 team points.
Winning a championship for the Warriors was diver Tristan Mauk, scoring 194.95 points in his finest showing as a six-set diver. Mauk’s score was a full 23 points clear of runner-up Tyler Byerline of Rochester.
Luke Smith had a big day in the pool for the Warriors, grabbing second place in the 50 at 23.62 and was part of two third-place relay teams. Zac Hershberger had a pair of third-place individual swims in the individual medley (2:07.36) and breaststroke (1:04.65) while working with Smith, Logan Brugh and Sebastian List in the third-place medley relay (1:47.96) and the fourth-place 400 free relay (3:33.22) with Brugh, List and Andrew Busse.
Smith was fourth in the 100 at 53.19 and List was third in the backstroke at 59.72.
St. Joseph’s were paced by sweeps in the 200 and 500 freestyles, led in both events by the wizardry of Trevor Carroll, who went 1:42.15 and 4:41.36, respectively. Carroll, the defending state champion in the 200 free and runner-up in the 100 free, also helped the Indians to titles in the 200 free relay (1:30.54) and 400 free relay (3:21.08), both state level times this early in the season.
Wawasee’s boys and girls teams will conclude its home schedule by hosting Warsaw Tuesday evening.
Wawasee Fourth At December Supers
Wawasee earned a pair of wins at the Wawasee December Super Duals, but left a lot to be desired in three losses.
The Warriors grabbed wins in round two over Manchester 42-31 and round three against Bishop Luers, 57-24. But lopsided results in favor of Plymouth in round one, 54-7, Rochester in round four, 56-15, and John Glenn, 57-21, to conclude the afternoon left the Wawasee 10-14 overall heading into the winter break.
Glenn were champions with a 5-0 mark on the day and had seven wrestlers undefeated in mat action. Plymouth, which picked up a Northern Lakes Conference win over Wawasee (1-4 NLC) in the first round, had four wrestlers unblemished and lost just one team score on the day, an eight-point loss to Glenn in round two. Wawasee did not have a wrestler work a perfect day on the mats.
Sam Lovejoy ran the gamut unbeaten in the 126-pound bracket for Bishop Luers and was named the Outstanding Wrestler of the Duals. Coach Tim White of John Glenn was honored for his team’s efforts.
Wawasee will get back at it Jan. 3 when it faces NorthWood in Nappanee.
Gymnasts Open At LaPorte Pairs
A second-place finish of 9.4 on the floor by the duo of Kim Garber and Emily Allen scored two team points for Wawasee and helped the duo to a 33.8 all-around score at the LaPorte Pairs.
Garber and Allen were tenth on beam at 8.2, and eleventh on bars (7.8) and vault (8.4) to lead the Lady Warriors in its opening competition of the season.
Crown Point scored eight points with its duo of Hannah Best and Megan Supan and seven points from Natalie Groff and Samantha Nicol to lead the team to the Pairs title. Chesterton were two points behind Crown Point for second place overall and Portage third.
Wawasee’s duo of Taylor Busse and Molly Smith were 17th overall with 31.1 all-around points and Deea Coy and Ashleigh Frecker were 23rd at 20.9 all-around points.
“This was a positive experience,” said Wawasee head coach Nika Prather. “We were proud of all of the girls, and glad to get the first competition under our belt. It was a wonderful learning experience and an eye opener for our seven new gymnasts. We have a lot of things to work on before our next competition.”
Wawasee will have until Jan. 3 to tune up for the Blazer Invite, hosted by Elkhart Central.