THORNTON | Without any divers on the roster this season, the Regis Jesuit boys swim team is going to have to make up for it in the pool according to assistant coach Chris O’Sullivan.
The Raiders did that in a huge way Saturday afternoon at the Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center, as they racked up a whopping 1,018 points to almost double up runner-up Cherry Creek among the 20 Class 5A teams in the multi-classification meet.
Regis Jesuit and many other teams competed without some top swimmers who were away at a sectional meet, but there was still plenty of talent in the water. The Raiders — who had O’Sullivan serve as interim coach with head coach Nick Frasersmith at the sectional meet — had plenty of it as they won all three relay events and three individual events as well.
“We’ve been putting in a lot of work, so we’re not rested, so for those guys to swim that fast at this time of year was really impressive,” O’Sullivan said.
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Seniors Hawkins Wendt, Truman Inglis and Harry Kerscher took firsts for Regis Jesuit, which also added three new state qualifiers to its contingent that will take to the same pool in a couple of months as it attempts to defend last season’s state title.
Wendt had a big meet as he won the 50 yard freestyle and got touched out by Inglis in the 100 freestyle in his second individual event, while he also anchored the winning 200 and 400 freestyle teams.
Inglis — who got to the wall 0.18 of a second ahead of Wendt in the 100 — swam legs on the victorious 200 medley and 200 freestyle relay teams, while Kerscher was part of the winning 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay groups in addition to a winning performance in the 100 butterfly and runner-up result in the 100 backstroke.
Regis Jesuit was especially dominant in the 100 freestyle as Inglis and Wendt were followed by freshman Nolan Kohl in third place and Cruze Bailey in sixth.
Grandview missed several regulars from its roster, but racked up 390 points to finish fourth with its top individual results coming from the third-place finishes of the 200 medley (Ethan Finlay, Kyle Chu, William Schimberg, Christian Burgeson) and 200 freestyle relays (Finlay, Chu, Schimberg and Parker Gust).
Individually, the Wolves’ highest finish came from junior Erik Gustafsson, who was fourth in the 500 yard freestyle.
Smoky Hill — also missing a significant number of contributors — got a big meet from junior Daniel Yi and finished in seventh place with 334 points. Yi came up just short in a battle with Windsor’s Jake Eccleston in the 100 breaststroke as he posted a time of 55.13 seconds to Eccleston’s 54.81, while he also finished third in a close 50 freestyle.
Additionally, Yi teamed with senior Antonio Goris and fellow juniors Chae Phillips and Adam Kutak on a 200 medley relay team that came in second behind Regis Jesuit.
Cherokee Trail finished 11th with freshman Colton Markum securing the team’s only championship finals appearance when he placed 10th in the 500 yard freestyle.
Overland placed 17th among 5A teams with its top result coming from the 17th-place 200 freestyle relay team of Minhtam La, Alex Czyzowicz, Eli Post and Eric Kelly.
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports