Regis Jesuit alum Clark Smith captured a gold medal when the United States men’s swimming team won the 4×200-meter relay at the Summer Olympics on Tuesday night in Rio de Janeiro.
Smith helped the U.S. qualify for the final earlier Tuesday when he swam the lead leg in the preliminaries. His split was 1:47.20 as the Americans finished in 7:06.74, the second-best qualifying time.
Regis Jesuit alum Clark Smith. (Courtesy of Team USA)
On Tuesday night, USA Swimming swapped out three of the four swimmers from prelims, inserting Conor Dwyer, Francis Haas and Michael Phelps, while keeping Ryan Lochte in the relay. That group of four won the final in 7:00.66.
Because Smith swam in the prelims, he will get a gold medal.
Smith graduated from Regis Jesuit in 2013, where he won 10 state championships in his career, including five individual titles.
He is set to be a senior at the University of Texas this fall. In 2015, Smith won an NCAA championship in the 500-yard freestyle. He is a three-time All-American.
Fairview’s Michael Zarian is the 5A boys swimmer of the year. (Ray Chen/ArrayPhoto.com)
The 2016 all-state boys swimming teams are presented by CHSAANow.com, ColoradoPreps.com and MaxPreps.
These teams were created based upon results at the state meet.
Swimmers of the year were selected based upon the number of team points they produced at the state meet. This means that they received the full amount of team points from individual events they swam in, as well as one-fourth of the total points earned by the team in relays they swam in.
Finally, in order to be considered for swimmer of the year, athletes must first have made the all-state team by winning in a championship.
Divers of the year were selected by finish at the state meet, as were coaches of the year.
They gained the lead early, totaling 100 points by the end of the fourth event, and putting a 35-point margin between them and their opponents.
Last season, Cheyenne Mountain’s win was led by sophomore Daniel Carr, who broke two state records. This year, the reigning champions were without Carr, but Brayden Love, Kyle Leach and other teammates stepped up.
Love finished first in the 100-yard breaststroke and second in the 100-yard butterfly. The junior also swam the third leg of the 200-yard medley relay, the first race of the night and their first of eight podium finishes. The champions finished second to Air Academy in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
“We work so hard for what we want,” Love said. “Both years we have been neck-and-neck with the other teams and it drives us to improve in practice everyday.”
Valor Christian took second place, a position they were bumped into via the diving portion, where freshman Casey Fellows finished first with a score of 530.30.
“It was really exciting, but it was still stressful, ” Fellows said of his first high school finals, “I felt a lot of pressure.”
Fellows may be at freshman at Valor but he is no novice to the sport. He began diving when he was six.
Valor landed on the podium in all three relays, further securing their second-place team finish.
Air Academy senior Tommy Baker swam just like he did in the prelims, capturing two first-place finishes in the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle. His 100-yard time of 44.70 earned him an auto All-American honor. Last year, Baker finished third in the same race. Bundy, who missed the podium last year, finished second.
Caleb Hicks finished first for the second year in a row in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 49.19, breaking his own record set last season and making the All-American cut. Cheyenne Mountain sophomore Kyle Leach earned the same accolade in the 200-yard freestyle.
Liam Gately also had the repeat first-place finish and All-American time in his main event, the 500-yard freestyle. The Thompson Valley junior finished second in the 200-yard freestyle and helped his team tie for third place. They shared the podium with Air Academy, as both teams carried 224 total points.
In the 200-yard freestyle relay, Silver Creek finished right behind Air Academy, but a false-start disqualified the team, bumping Cheyenne to second and bumping Valor into the final podium spot.
Silver Creek senior Sam Willette won both the 200-yard IM and the 100-yard backstroke.
“It is more than a personal feeling for me, it’s knowing that I did that because of my team,” Willette said of his dual victories. “There is no way that I would have placed first in both of those if my whole team wasn’t standing on those bleachers cheering me on.”
The finals concluded with Cheyenne just edging Air Academy in 400-yard freestyle relay, the race they set the record for last year.
COLORADO SPRINGS – Before 2015, Fossil Ridge had never won a boys swim and dive state team championship.
The Sabercats now have two in a row.
Thanks to wins by Danny Kovac in the 100-yard backstroke and its 200-yard freestyle relay, Fossil Ridge won its latest title Saturday at the at the Class 5A swim and dive state championships at the Air Force Academy.
The Sabercats finished with 331.50 points to top Regis Jesuit (252 points). Defeating Regis is no easy task. The Raiders have won 20 state championships, and four in a row from 2011-14. All of Regis’ state crowns have come since 1992.
“That was our goal from the start of this season to win state again,” Fossil Ridge coach Mark Morehouse said. “It’s pretty awesome to set a goal and reach it. All these guys are unbelievable and this is just great.”
Fossil Ridge’s charge was all about depth as it had 15 swimmers competing in the championship finals and seven in the consolation finals.
“We talk about that all the time, you don’t win titles by winning events, you win by having a lot of people scoring and a lot of people making the finals,” Morehouse said. “We also talk about that all the time that you win championships in prelims and we had the best possible day we could (Friday). We had kids who have never scored a point in this meet who made two finals. Depth is what does it.”
Kovac, a sophomore, won the backstroke (49.69) for the second-consecutive year. The Sabercats 200 freestyle relay team won with a time of 1:24.55.
“This feels great,” Kovac said. “This is exactly what we set out to do and we wouldn’t have been able to win state without our entire team doing its job. It’s just really cool that we accomplished what we set out to do.”
The start of the meet was delayed an hour – to 3 p.m. – because of issues with the scoreboard in regards to scoring for diving, but it didn’t dampen the joy on the faces of the state champs.
Like the face of double state winner Michael Zarian of Fairview.
The junior captured state glory in the 200 IM (1:49.72) and the 500 freestyle (4:34.45). Zarian also won the 500 free as a sophomore.
“It is a great honor,” said Zarian following his inaugural 200 IM state crown. “I’ve had great coaching and to win two state championships really means a lot.”
Boulder’s Chris Nicholson (1:37.85) won the 200-yard freestyle, and Ponderosa’s Max Grogan was the 50-freestyle (21.04) winner.
Winning a sprint event was the last thing Grogan, a senior, envisioned for himself when he entered high school.
“This is a great feeling,” said the 6-foot-4, 185-pound Grogan, whose previous best state finish was third in the 50 free last year. “I have been training for a year now for the 50. I went through some trouble in the 200 and 500 when I was a sophomore and I got switched to a sprinter and it paid off. I have a breathing problem called vocal cord dysfunction (abnormal closing of the vocal cords when you breathe in or out). I was really good at distance when I was a freshman, but this disorder kind of caught on, so that’s why now I’m a sprinter. Less yards and more sprinting.”
Diver Octavio Lucero of Bear Creek (604.65 points) won state and Arapahoe High School’s Griffin Eiber was tops in the100 free (45.07). Eiber just edged Boulder’s Nicholson (45.12). Sasia Gabriele was the 100 butterfly (49.32) winner and Elijah Warren of Regis snared the 100 backstroke championship with a 54.82 second time.
“This feels really rewarding,” said Eiber, who was a runner-up to Nicholson in the 200 fee. “All my hard work paid off. I know Chris and he’s become really good in the 200 and I just went for it in the 100 free against him. We both had really good swims and I was pleased with my result.”
THORNTON — If the last two minutes of Friday’s prelims were any indication, the Class 4A boys swim and dive finals are going to be a treat.
It was equivalent to a thrilling overtime in basketball, sudden death in hockey. Just much rarer.
A tie in times in the last individual event of the night forced a swim-off: A head-to-head matchup between Littleton senior Theodore Jensen and Cheyenne Mountain freshman Sheridan Harder closed out the night.
In the 100-yard breaststroke, only 30 minutes prior, the two finished at 1:03:55, the eighth-place time. When they raced again with empty lanes to their left and right, Jensen finished in 1:02:42, Harder at 1:02:49. Seven hundredths of a second gave Jensen the last qualifying spot in finals.
“It was just so cool to even be in a swim-off, to be in the energy of it all,” Jensen said. “I thought I had a good time in the first race and when my coach came over and told me I needed to do a second race, I thought, ‘This will be rough.’ I was really nervous prior to and during the first 50 yards. But in the last 50, I just stopped caring about my arms hurting and went as hard as I could.”
Jensen will swim his last high school breast stroke in the finals Saturday.
Two brothers, Thompson Valley junior Liam Gately and sophomore Lukas Gately, will swim against one another in the 500-yard free final on Saturday. The elder took first place in 2015. Tonight he placed fourth, while his brother made the cut at eighth.
Two freshman finished top in their events this evening: Montrose’s Ryan King in the 500-yard freestyle and Air Academy’s Griffin Ayotte in the 200-yard free. King and Ayotte will swim in both races tomorrow, with a chance to place in either.
The more seasoned Air Academy swimmer, senior Tommy Baker, qualified first in his two events. He currently holds the season record for the 50- and 100-yard freestyle, both of which he beat tonight. Baker opted out of the 200-yard this time around, the event he won last year.
Saturday won’t be an easy feat, though, as Denver South junior Keegan Bundy placed second in both events, right behind Baker. Baker’s season best in the 100-yard prior to the prelims was 45:91, while Bundy’s was 45:92.
“There are so many fast guys out here. Keegan and I are good friends, he’s a fast kid and he pushes me,” Baker said. “It’s good competition and it’s going to be close tomorrow. When I come back tomorrow I just hope the excitement of the finals carries me there to the win.”
Last season, Baker finished third in the 100-yard freestyle, while Bundy missed the podium by one spot in the 50-yard freestyle.
Cheyenne Mountain finished Friday night with 10 qualifying places from eight different swimmers, while Air Academy had six. Cheyenne took first in two of the three relays and Air Academy grabbed the number one spot the 400-yard freestyle relay.
A year ago, Cheyenne Mountain claimed the championship, knocking off three-time champ Air Academy. Baker, Ayotte and the rest of their team plan to finish like they did in 2012, 2013, 2014: in first place, with Baker trying for his third team victory in his high school career.
AIR FORCE ACADEMY — This season, Arapahoe High School’s Griffin Eiber only swam the 200-yard freestyle a few times.
However, if any of his Class 5A competitors thought he lost some speed — they were dead wrong.
Arapahoe’s Griffin Eiber.
Eiber, a junior, clocked a career-best 1:39.94-second time in prelims to grab the No. 1 seed Friday at the Class 5A swim and dive state championships at the Air Force Academy.
For good measure, Eiber also qualified No. 1 in the 100 free (45.37). Eiber also swam legs on Arapahaoe’s 200 and 400 relays teams. The Warriors were second in the 200 free (1:25.77), which qualified them No. 2, and No. 6 in the 400 (3:12.50). Eiber clocked a 20.96-second time in the first leg of the 200, which was quicker than any of the 50 freestyle competitors.
“I have never been under 1:40 before, so that 1:39 felt awesome,” the 6-foot, 145-pound Eiber said. “It felt good and it felt comfortable, and I was just relieved because it was a big goal for me to break 1:40. That was my first good 200 free in almost a year. It wasn’t that good in the spring, at least not where I wanted it to be. My plan for (Saturday) is to just up and race and the time will take care of itself.”
Diving prelims begin at 9 a.m. Saturday and the finals in all events start at 2 p.m. The top 16 placers Friday moved on to Saturday. The top eight finishers in the prelims in each event will swim Saturday in the championships finals. The remaining competitors will compete in the consolation finals.
Eiber clocked his previous personal-best time of 1:41.09 when he placed second in state in the 100 free to Cherry Creek senior Sam Coffman a year ago.
The performance of Eiber didn’t surprise longtime Arapahoe coach Michael Richmond.
“First of all, Griffin was happy to break 40, especially at this altitude (7,285 feet),” Richmond said. “He’s smooth in the water and he’s beautiful to watch. He does a lot of good things. He’s very aware. He’s savvy and he’s a great kid. He’s also very focused and he’s a great student-athlete. We’re glad he’s swimming well and glad he’s only a junior.”
George Farner, Arapahoe’s assistant coach, concurred with Richmond.
“We were pleased with the 1:39, but he thinks he can go faster than that, so we will see how it goes (Saturday),” Farner said. “He’s a great kid for our team. He’s a leader on the team and does what he needs to do. He’s also really in tune in what he needs in the way of training. He didn’t swim the 200 much this season because he wanted to sort of focus on it here at state.”
Eiber, 17, has already looked at some NCAA Division I schools to continue his swimming career, including in the Ivy League, but he hasn’t made any decisions yet.
“I would really like to swim in college, but I haven’t really thought about too many places yet,” said Eiber, who began swimming at age 4.
Eiber’s main concentration is the task at hand Saturday. Eiber also is one of the state’s top 50-freestyle swimmers, but he is only able to compete in two individual events at state and chose the 100 and 200 free.
“I’ve never won a state championship, and if I could win a state championship it would mean a lot,” Eiber said. “It would mean the hard work I’ve been putting in would’ve finally paid off. The 50, 100 and 200 free are tightly-knit for my top three events, and it is just kind of goes around (which one is best) as the season changes.”
Richmond knows state glory is clearly within Eiber’s reach.
“Potential (to win state) is a big word, but certainly when you place first you’re in the money,” Richmond said. “You have to come back and do it (Saturday), but he knows that and he will be good.”
