Warsaw’s Audrey Curson. (Photo by Nick Goralczyk)

ELKHART — Concord High School was the site of Thursday’s girls swimming action in the Northern Lakes Conference. Swimmers gathered to compete at the NLC prelims in preparation for Saturday’s conference finals.

Northridge placed first in nine of the 11 events, advanced 19 individuals to finals races and four more into consoles. The Raiders will undoubtedly be primed for yet another conference title come Saturday.

Despite Northridge stealing the limelight, local teams Warsaw and Wawasee were ecstatic about their times as well.

“Today was great,” began Warsaw head coach Tony DeBrota. “We’ve been talking a lot about confidence and it stuck with the girls. We’ve talked a lot about our finishes, talked about our turns and not going into auto pilot. They remembered that today and I was pretty pleased.”

Brenna Morgan had the highlight of the meet as she broke both a school and meet record in the 50 free. Morgan swam a 23.86 which bested Brittany Robinson’s (Wawasee) meet record of 23.95 set in 2009. Morgan later swam the top time in the 100 free (52.35).

Delaney Wihebrink surprised with her swim in the 200 IM. The freshman clocked the second-best time (2:16.24) after entering the event with the seventh-best time. Wihebrink also qualified for the finals in the 100 back with a time of 1:01.08.

In the 200 free Laurel Moeller (2:08.22) and Lauren Kuhl (2:10.96) made the cut for consoles. Olivia Herman (25.61) grabbed the sixth seed in the 50 free with Savannah Taylor (28.90) grabbing the last consoles spot in the event. Maddie Ray (1:12.88) and Allison Thompson (1:15.88) grabbed console spots in the 100 fly. Herman (57.79) and Moeller (59.36) will be the seventh and eighth seeds, respectively in the 100 free. Kuhl slipped into the seventh seed in the 500 free with a time of 5:45.51.  Audrey Curson (1:14.34) grabbed the final consoles spot in the 100 back. Bridgette Yoder (1:14.38) will be seeded fourth in the 100 breast while Ella Knight (1:24.48) will be in the consoles.

Warsaw’s 200 medley relay team (2:03.00) will be seeded fourth. The 200 free relay team (1:49.26) will be third and the 400 free relay team (4:09.48) fifth.

Wawasee also had an impressive night in the pool, advancing 21 swimmers total to Saturday’s races, nine in finals events.

“We had so many lifetime and season bests tonight,” remarked Wawasee had coach Julie Robinson. “I was shocked. I thought there would be a few races that we wouldn’t have girls come back in on Saturday. Not only did we have somebody make it in every even but we had all but two girls make it back. Everyone else made it back for Saturday. It was just a great night.”

Paige Miller will be seeded second for both of her events on Saturday. The junior set herself up well with a 1:59.59 in the 200 free and a 5:18.18 in the 500 free. Northridge’s Katie Hughes (5:07.66) grabbed the top seed in the 500 free. Hughes and Miller have made for quite the spectacle in the distance event the past few seasons with several close finishes and it looks as if it will be that way yet again.

Joining Miller in the 200 free finals will be Alyssa Koch. The Wawasee sophomore grabbed the eighth and final prelims spot with a time of 2:06.46. Shelby Adams (2:06.75) will have the top seed in the consoles race.

Wawasee was not able to get a swimmer into the finals of the 200 IM but managed to get three girls into the consoles with Ryane Beaman (2:39.32), Zoé White (2:40.12) and Tessa Freel (2:43.83). White and Freel will also compete in the consoles of the 500 free. Mikala Mawhorter clinched the seventh seed in the 50 free with a time of 26.02. Lizzie Brugh (28.00) will be the nine seed in the event. Mawhorter also will swim in the finals of the 100 fly as she made the cut with a time of 1:06.61. Brugh (1:11.59) will compete in the finals of that event as well.

Kayla Hershberger (56.89) earned the fifth seed of the 100 free while Madi McBride (59.86) and Ryane Beaman (1:04.28) earned spots in the consoles. Hershberger (1:04.68) and Koch (1:05.76) will both be in the finals of the 100 back while Macie Stuckman (1:14.06) has a spot in the consoles. Adams and McBride earned spots in the 100 breast finals with respective times of 1:15.07 and 1:15.62. Caitlin Kingrey (1:25.44) picked up a spot in the consoles for the event.

Wawasee’s 400 free relay team (3:59.22) will be seeded second while the 200 IM (2:05.26) and 200 free (1:50.62) will be seeded fifth and fourth, respectively.