Cavan Stilson
Three days after winning their first Hoosier Hills Conference title in 42 years, the Columbus East boys swimmers had a chance to complete an undefeated dual-meet season.
Unfortunately for the Olympians, they came up a little short of that accomplishment after a 98-87 loss to Bloomington North. But East did create a little more excitement when it took down a 28-year-old school record in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
“We had a big weekend with the conference meet, and a lot of energy and emotion went into that,” East coach Doug Trueblood said. “To come back and try to get up for an amazingly deep Bloomington team, I wasn’t too worried about the win. We just wanted to go for that relay and then get some good swims in across the board from the other guys.”
Senior Cavan Stilson, juniors Keaton Stephenson and Misha Machavariani and senior Judah Nickoll swam 1 minute, 29.60 seconds to break a school record that had stood since 1996. On Saturday, Nickoll broke the 200 freestyle record that had stood since 2007.
Stilson, Machavariani and Nickoll were part of school record-setting and state-qualifying 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams last year and plan to swim those relays again in this year’s postseason.
“We were really just trying to focus on getting the 200 free relay,” Trueblood said. “The boys wanted to take an opportunity to go for it. The guys reminded me how close they were (to the record) and that they thought they could get it, so we were like, ‘Let’s go for it. This is our last chance to get it,’ because this group will not swim that in sectional, so this was good.”
Winning individual events for the Olympians on Tuesday were Stephenson in the 200 freestyle (1:50.78), Todd Hundley in the 200 individual medley (2:06.62), Gavin Day in the diving competition (270.25), Stilson in the 100 freestyle (49.38) and Nickoll in the 100 backstroke (56.10).
“The last three years, we’ve been second (in the conference),” Trueblood said. “We’ve just been knocking on that door, and Floyd is so tough every year. They do such a good job with their program, and we’re trying to match ourselves off that success. To be second the last three years was bittersweet, and we knew we had a chance, and the boys went out and just earned it. I think there’s a lot of energy that went into that, and today is a hard ask to get the guys to come back and regroup after a day of just practice and recovery and then come back and swim an extremely deep and talented Bloomington squad.”
The Olympians now will turn their attention to the sectional, which is Feb. 15 and 17 at Columbus North. The girls sectional is Thursday and Saturday at East Central.
“The girls are tapered down, and the boys, we have to start their taper next week,” Trueblood said. “We’ll get them ready to swim their best at sectional. We’re excited and looking forward to it.”
