Despite smaller numbers this season, Aurora’s strength in the pool remained during the 2024 boys swimming season.
Reduced team sizes and the loss of the Aurora Public Schools co-op program for at least this season meant fewer in the water around the city, but those that remained were on point in the two days of the Class 5A boys swimming state meet at the Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center.
All five of the local prep programs — Cherokee Trail, Grandview, Overland, Regis Jesuit and Smoky Hill — earned representation on the 2024 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Boys Swim Team based on their respective showings at the state meet.
Setting the tone again for Aurora is Regis Jesuit, which sought to win its third straight 5A state championship and 25th all-time, but did not have the firepower to keep up with rival Cherry Creek. The Bruins (who sought their first state title since 2021 and 13 all-time) won half of the state meet’s 12 events and prevailed by more than 100 points over coach Nick Frasersmith’s Raiders, who maximized their points to finish as runner-up.
Senior Sean Greene-Cockriel, junior Reid Magner and the 200 and 400 yard freestyle relay teams earned All-Aurora first team honors for Regis Jesuit.
Greene-Cockriel (aka Chief) swam just one season for Regis Jesuit, but he was the area’s highest finisher in the 200 yard freestyle in ninth place (with a season-best time of 1 minute, 41.05 seconds that came in the prelims), while he also swam on both All-Aurora first team relays.
Magner made a huge jump from his pre-meet seeding in the 200 yard individual medley to finish as the 5A runner-up. He was ninth coming into the meet, but swam nearly six seconds faster to finish behind only Fossil Ridge’s Brennen O’Neil in the championship final.
Regis Jesuit’s 400 freestyle relay team included both Magner and Greene-Cockriel in addition to senior Hennig Colsman and sophomore Nolan Kohl as they finished sixth. The Raiders swam 2-plus seconds faster than their pre-meet seed time, but finished one place lower than their projection.
The 200 freestyle relay team of Greene-Cockriel, fellow seniors Owen Mulligan, Cruze Bailey and Connor Fredericks, conversely, was projected to place sixth but instead rose to fourth with a time that improved their season best by nearly two full seconds.
Grandview landed one individual — junior Oliver Schimberg — and its 200 yard medley relay team on the All-Aurora squad at the end of a fantastic season that saw coach Dan Berve’s Wolves set no fewer than seven program records.
Schimberg is one of only two swimmers to earn All-Aurora first team accolades in two different events, as he did so in the 100 yard backstroke and 100 yard butterfly. Schimberg was the area’s only state champion, as he ruled the backstroke for a second consecutive season with a personal best time of 47.49 seconds. He was the runner-up in the butterfly to Cherry Creek’s Brodie Johnson, who also completed his quest to win an event for the second straight season.
Making Schimberg even more proud than his individual accolades was the performance of the Wolves’ 200 yard medley relay team of himself and fellow junior Evan Finlay along with seniors Alex Stinemetze and Evan Higgins. Grandview finished as the state runner-up in the meet-opening event, which marked the highest-ever finish for the program in a relay event at the state meet. The Wolves went into the meet seeded ninth with a best time of 1:34.59, but swam two seconds faster in prelims to move up to the fourth seed in the finals and then dropped a 1:31.85 in the final race to come in only behind Cherry Creek.
Smoky Hill landed two individuals on the All-Aurora first team in senior Daniel Yi and junior Ian Noffsinger, who helped coach Scott Cohen’s team to a solid sixth-place team finish.
Yi won the Hoyt Brawner Award as the state’s top swimmer/citizen/scholar earlier in the season and he was voted as the 5A Swimmer of the Year by coaches when it was over. The University of Utah recruit did not end up with the state championship he sought, however, as for the second year in a row, he finished second in the 100 yard breaststroke to a swimmer who set the Colorado state record. In 2023, it was Chatfield’s Joshua Corn who set the mark to hold off Yi, while Lewis-Palmer’s Eli Hobson did it this season with a time that knocked Corn off the top spot in the recordbooks.
Still, Yi was far and away the area’s best breaststroker and had a resume that made Cohen firmly believe he is the best male swimmer Smoky Hill has ever produced.
Noffsinger will have to pick up a lot of slack next season with the departure of a large and talented senior class, but he will have his sites set on winning a state championship after getting close at the conclusion of his junior year. The Buffaloes dominated the 500 freestyle at every event they competed in during the season with Noffsinger leading the way. Swimming stroke for stroke and looking directly at Regis Jesuit’s Reid Magner in the final 25 yards, Noffsinger made it to the wall first.
Cherokee Trail had Aurora’s top sprinter from the start of the season to the end of it in junior Bronson Smothers, who was the area’s highest finisher on the state medal podium in both the 50 and 100 yard freestyles. The Cougars’ standout slipped a little bit in terms of place in the 50 freestyle — in which he was third in 2023 — but he was definitely faster, as he bettered last season’s 21.10 with a 20.86 in the finals this season that placed him sixth and put him in All-American Consideration territory.
Smothers made even bigger strides between seasons in the 100 freestyle, as he was 12th a year ago, but rocketed all the way to sixth in his junior campaign with a finals time of 45.71 seconds (nearly a full second faster than he went to conclude the 2023 season)
Diving has become a somewhat lost art around Aurora in recent years and only handful of divers earned the requisite scores to compete in the 5A state championship meet.
Overland junior Chad Hamilton made his state debut as a sophomore in 2023 with a 20th-place finish with a score of 343.85 points and he topped himself significantly in his junior season. Hamilton, the lone Aurora diver to make it into the final round, tacked on nearly 50 points to his previous season’s tally with a 392.05 that put him in 18th place.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
2024 AURORA SENTINEL ALL-AURORA BOYS SWIM TEAM
FIRST TEAM
200 yard medley relay: Grandview (Oliver Schimberg, Alex Stinemetze, Ethan Finlay, Evan Higgins)
200 yard freestyle: Sean Greene-Cockriel, sr., Regis Jesuit
200 yard indiv. medley: Reid Magner, jr., Regis Jesuit
50 yard freestyle: Bronson Smothers, jr., Cherokee Trail
1-meter diving: Chad Hamilton, jr., Overland
100 yard butterfly: Oliver Schimberg, jr., Grandview
100 yard freestyle: Bronson Smothers, jr., Cherokee Trail
500 yard freestyle: Ian Noffsinger, jr., Smoky Hill
200 yard freestyle relay: Regis Jesuit (Sean Greene-Cockriel, Owen Mulligan, Connor Fredericks, Cruze Bailey)
100 yard backstroke: Oliver Schimberg, jr., Grandview*
100 yard breaststroke: Daniel Yi, sr., Smoky Hill
400 yard freestyle relay: Regis Jesuit (Nolan Kohl, Hennig Colsman, Reid Magner, Sean Greene-Cockriel)
* — State champion
Full 2024 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Boys Swim teams, here
