Carmel advances all 27 to “A” Final

By RICHIE HALL

sports@readthereporter.com

CARMEL – A young group of Carmel swimmers is ready to help the Greyhounds continue the boys team’s state championship streak.

Carmel hosted the boys swimming sectional preliminaries on Thursday and took care of business, earning top seeds in all 11 events and advancing all 27 of its swims to the “A” Final, or championship heat of those races. The Greyhounds will now be favored to win the team title at Saturday’s sectional finals as well as qualify several swimmers to next weekend’s state tournament, where Carmel is the 10-time defending champion.

Two Greyhounds sophomores picked up top seeds in two individual events. William Allen is the first seed in the 200 freestyle after clocking a prelim time of 1 minute, 43.67 seconds. Allen also claimed the fastest 500 free time of 4:35.14 in that event.

Meanwhile, Yi Zheng earned the top seed in the individual medley with a time of 1:52.53. Later, Zheng dominated the breaststroke with a time of 58.47 seconds to earn the first seed in that event.

Other Carmel top seeds went to senior William Pugh in the 50 free (21.91), senior Andrew Shackell in the butterfly (50.27), junior Carter Hadley in the 100 free (47.29) and junior Cory Han in the backstroke (50.33). The ‘Hounds also got the top seed in all three relays.

Westfield qualified 26 swims to the Saturday finals, with 14 making the “A” Final and 12 reaching the “B” Final. Two Shamrocks seniors picked up second seeds: Alex Munn in the 50 free (22.09) and Griffin Barents Froman in the breaststroke (1:00.19).

Noblesville advanced 23 swims to Saturday, with 17 in the fast heat and six more making the consols. Sophomore Liam Hayward qualified second in the butterfly (51.75), while the Millers’ medley and 400 free relay teams also both earned second seeds.

“I’m real impressed with the way our boys performed tonight,” said Noblesville coach Jess Preston. “Only three of our boys have swam at this meet before, so we had a lot of guys that were inexperienced and they really stepped up to the challenge. Couldn’t be happier for them.”

Guerin Catholic had seven swims advance to Saturday, with five in the “A” heat and two more in the “B” heat. Junior Will Ladine qualified fifth in both the 100 free (49.12) and the breaststroke (1:01.42), while sophomore Sam Holl qualified fifth in the 500 free (4:51.41)