Lady ‘Cats demolish sectional field, record books

Members of the Mount Vernon girls’ sectional swim team celebrate
“the perfect meet.” Photo by Dave Koch.

By Steve Joos
The Mount Vernon girls’ swim team looked very good Saturday.
How good were they?
They were so good, they even scared their coach.
“We were scary fast,” Lady Wet Cats’ coach Larry Zoller said. “We not only broke records, we demolished records, by four or five second in the relays. We broke records we didn’t expect, like in the backstroke (where Samantha Gowdy bettered the old mark by five-hundredths of a second). Our kids are just ready.”
After swimming the fastest of any Sectional in the state in Thursday’s preliminary round, the Lady Wet Wildcats rewrote the Sectional record book while capturing their Sectional crown, scoring 520 points, 53 better than second-place Castle (467) at the Lady Knights’ pool.
“This was just an unbelievable meet,” Zoller said. “This was a magical moment. You just don’t have meets like this where everyone takes taper just the way it’s supposed to, but we’re only at a stop for our destination. This year, our destination isn’t Sectional; our destination is the state meet.”
The coach said that the team set itself up well as far as state seedings were concerned and that should put them in a good position to back up the third-place ranking Mount Vernon has received over much of the season.
It may have been just a first stop, oh, but what a first stop it was.
After Mount Vernon won its seventh straight Sectional crown and 19th meet in the last 20 years, the Lady Wet Cats linked arms across the diving pool at Castle and took the victory plunge as a group, which was appropriate, since it was a total team effort, Zoller added.
Usual suspects Ericka McCormick and Clara Baggett were double winners, with record-breaking performance in all four individual events (Baggett’s :50.75 in the 100-yard freestyle shattered a 15-year old mark in that event, while McCormick bettered her own 2011 record with a 1:01.88 in the 100-breaststroke), but any other swimmers also got into the act.
In addition to Gowdy, Kelsey Turner wiped out the record in the 200-freestyle (1:51.39), which had also stood since 1997, and then there were the relays.
The 200-medley relay squad beat the old record by over two seconds (from 1:48.94 to 1:46.47), the 200-freestyle relay team broke the mark of 2009 Lady Wet Cats by a second (1:36.49, compared to 1:37.49) and the 400-freestyle squad obliterated Memorial’s 2000 mark of 3:39.18 by nearly seven seconds (3:32.38).
Actually, this was the way the Lady Wet Cats had it planned, Zoller said.
“We were doing what we had planned,” the coach explained. “We were doing what we needed to do to swim fast and hang tough at the end.”
The meet was basically a two-team race, with Memorial (308) a distant third. Mater Dei (251 and one-half) and Reitz (200) rounded out the top five. Six non-blue ribbon swimmers made the cut for the state meet, including one individual from Castle and two Lady Knight relays.
And did we mention that two of the others were Lady Wet Cats?
Kelsey Turner’s 5:06.64 in the 500-freestyle was three seconds below the state cut (and almost four better than the old Sectional record) even though she finished second to Olivia Treski of Castle, who of course, broke the old meet record.
In the breaststroke, Mark Klueh (1:05.12) made the state cut with two seconds to spare while finishing third behind McCormick and Lilia King of Reitz.
Even a relentless effort by the hosts helped the Lady Wet Cats, Zoller said.
“Castle swam well too,” the coach said. “And that helped us, because we knew that if we weren’t on top of our game, we were going to get beat.”
While Zoller felt the Sectional was a magic moment, he reiterated the fact that it wasn’t the team’s objective, adding that the team has thought of state as a bit of an afterthought in the past, but this year, he wants them going to Indianapolis focused on being a factor at the finals.
As for the first stop, it wasn’t too bad, though, even if the Lady Wet Cats were scary fast.
Central was sixth in the meet with 104 points.
Rounding out the field were North (98), Boonville (87), Bosse (86 and one-half), Gibson Southern (67) and Harrison (19).
Castle Sectional swim meet
200-medley relay: 1) Mount Vernon 1:46.47*; 200-frredstiyle: Turner (first) 1:51.39*, Rachel Burke (fifth) 2:03.61, Emily Harris (sixth) 2:08.69; 200-IM: McCormick (first) 2:03.84*, Klueh (second) 2:12.34, Kendyl Bourne (seventh) 2:24.20; 50-freestyle: Baggett (first):23.25*, Amy Steele (second):24.90.