Wawasee coach Jason Scott (center) addresses his team during the dual meet at Plymouth Thursday evening. InkFreeNews photo by Adam Yoder

By Adam Yoder
InkFreeNews

PLYMOUTH – The Wawasee swimming and diving teams traveled to Plymouth Thursday night for a Northern Lakes Conference clash at the Susan Bardwell Aquatic Center. Jason Scott’s Warriors came away with the sweep of the Pilgrims, winning both the boys and girls meets on the Pilgrims senior night.

Wawasee Girls 94, Plymouth 88

The Lady Warriors’ small roster numbers require them to get a lot of firsts in dual meets to make up for their lack of depth, and they did that in a big way in Plymouth.

The ladies took first place in all twelve events on their way to the victory. Plymouth’s depth kept the meet close throughout, taking up most of the other points available to keep the meet in doubt until the final relay.

Kelsey Keiper started the night off with a score 164.6 in the diving competition.

From there, the Warrior girls had winning swims from Lily Tyler in the 200 (2:07.29) and 500 (freestyles, Hayden Neer in the individual medley (2:23.74), Alexis Mishler in the 50 (25.64) and 100 (56.59) freestyles, Cammy Kryder in the butterfly (1:04.64) and backstroke (1:01.72), and Rileigh Atwood in the breaststroke (1:11.62).

Wawasee’s top medley relay posted a 1:57.27, followed by the 200 free relay at 1:53.52 and 400 free relay at 4:10.32.

“We’re small but we’re kind of mighty,” coach Scott noted. “The girls have been working really hard and its really exciting to see where we can go when start to taper and get some rest.”

Neer notched lifetime bests in her 200 IM victory as well as her second-place finish in the 100 Breaststroke (finishing .25 seconds behind her teammate Atwood).

Regarding building depth beyond the first place winners, “Demi Napier had some good swims tonight and Sophia Grumme matched close to her best in the 500 free (6:33.21),” Scott added.

Wawasee improved to 3-3 in the NLC with the win, and Plymouth falls to 1-5 in NLC competition.

Wawasee Boys 139, Plymouth 28

The boys swim and dive team wasn’t quite as dominant as the girls in terms of first place finishes, as they “only” were able to notch 11 firsts. Plymouth’s Joe Cartwright won the breaststroke (1:13.41) to keep the Warriors for sweeping the top spot in every event in both meets.

Beyond that, however, coach Scott’s squad dominated the meet throughout the night against a Pilgrim squad that is suffering from very low roster numbers this season (8).

Scott was quick to heap praise on the work ethic of the squad. According to Scott, Wawasee’s hardest workout of the season was Wednesday.

“This is probably the hardest working group of kids I’ve coached, and it doesn’t take a lot to motivate them. They came in yesterday and gave an amazing effort at practice.”

Devon Kuhn took first in the diving portion with a score of 188.35.

Winners in the pool for the Warrior boys included Nate Kryder in the 200 free (1:56.15) and butterfly (57.07), Nate Harper in the IM (2:12.50) and backstroke (59.88), Joshua Metcalf in the 50 (25.19) and 100 (55.71) freestyles, and Blake Roose in the 500 free (5:28.90).

Wawasee’s medley compliment took honors at 1:50.30, the 200 free relay at 1:33.44 and the 400 free relay at 3:46.99.

As the season nears the championship phase, Scott doesn’t see any tapering in the near future for his squads, “We’re going to swim through the conference for sure, before we start that.”

Both Warrior squads travel to Goshen for their third NLC matchup of the week on Saturday morning. Diving starts at 9:30 a.m.