Concord’s Maddisen Lantz won both the 100 fly and 100 breast in Tuesday’s meet with Wawasee. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

ELKHART — The learning curve continued for the Wawasee girls swim team Tuesday night as the Lady Warriors traveled to swim with Concord in a Northern Lakes Conference dual. What had been a very tight meet the past few seasons lacked some luster as the home team claimed a 115-71 win over Wawasee.

While winning and losing a truly far from the focus at this point in the season, Wawasee head coach Julie Robinson is noticing that the young swimmers on both her boys and girls teams are still adjusting to a higher level of competition.

“As a whole group we still need to work on racing instead of just swimming,” Robinson began. “Especially some of our younger swimmers. But, we had some good times tonight and that’s really what I’m looking for.

“There was a lot to be excited about. We had a lot of kids that got to swim exhibition which allowed us to see what they could do. So, yeah, as a whole I was really happy with the results tonight. It will be nice to go back and look over times and really see what everyone is doing at this point.”

Wawasee won four of the 12 events in the meet. Those four wins came from a duo of swimmers in Kayla Hershberger and Paige Miller.

Miller picked up Wawasee’s first win of the night in the 200 IM with a time of 2:11.82, beating out Makayla Miller of Concord (2:24.04). Miller, who has had a stellar start to her junior campaign for Wawasee, also won the 500 free. The junior had a huge cushion in the distance event as she swam a 5:07.82, well ahead of Concord’s Daniella Bessonov’s 5:39.42.

Hershberger took first in both the 100 free and 100 back. In the 100 free the senior swam a 58.81, beating out Alex Beer of Concord (1:00.20). A time of 1:05.79 helped Hershberger secure the top spot in the 100 back. Concord’s Jillian Dawson finished second with a 1:07.49 while Alyssa Koch (1:09.26) took third for Wawasee.

Hannah Rhoades impressed in the diving portion of the evening for Wawasee. The senior had her best performance of the season with a 184.20, placing her third behind Concord’s Jenna Lechlitner (208.65) and Lauren Boone (256.60).

The rest of the evening centered around the youth movement for Wawasee as several swimmers tried new events and hit new personal bests.

Zoe White swam a lifetime best in both the 200 free (2:30.03) and 100 breast (1:23.63). Lizzie Brugh clocked a season best time in the 500 free with a 6:26.10. Madi McBride also had a season best with her time of 1:19.96 in the 100 breast.

This weekend Wawasee (3-1, 2-1) will host its invite and the focus will remain on getting the team into race mode.

“Right now we’re really trying to focus on getting them to learn the difference of swimming in practice and racing,” Robinson said. “This was a good set up because most of the kids are swimming the same races Saturday that they swam tonight. I’m hoping they can come back Saturday with that race mentality.”

The invite will start at 10 a.m. at Wawasee Middle School.