AURORA | City individuals won a pair of individual event championships at the Class 5A boys state swim & diving championship meet on June 24, 2021, at the Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center in Thornton. Here’s a quick look at both state champions and how they won:
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at [email protected] Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
INDIVIDUAL
Regis Jesuit’s Quinn Henninger: Class 5A 1-meter diving — Henninger finished off his high school diving career just a few weeks after competing in the U.S. Olympic diving trials and went out on the highest note possible with his second career state championship. The Indiana University signee won his first title as a sophomore — losing his chance to repeat last season due to the coronavirus pandemic — with a score of 606.50 points, which put him within range of the Colorado and 5A state meet record owned by one of the divers he looked up to in former Regis Jesuit star Kyle Goodwin, a four-time 5A state champion who scored 611.85 points in 2015. Two years later, Henninger took both records for his own as he racked up 642.80 points in a diving competition held prior to the swimming finals to win the title by a whopping 60 points over Highlands Ranch’s Clayton Chaplin, who was picked as 5A Diver of the Year. Henninger won the 11th state diving championship for an Aurora program in the last 19 competitions, a run that began with his coach Taylor Roberts, who won the 5A crown in 2002 while at Smoky Hill.
Regis Jesuit’s Gio Aguirre: Class 5A 100 yard freestyle — Aguirre used frustration to fuel himself to a state championship, as he channeled the feeling he felt from a sub-standard performance in the 200 yard freestyle earlier to earn his way atop the medal podium. The Raiders’ junior standout had the fourth-fastest time in the field of 30 state qualifiers in the 100 freestyle coming into the state meet with a top time of 46.40 seconds, but dropped a 45.56 in the fastest of three timed finals to earn the title over Chatfield’s Tristen Davin, who swam 45.64. Aguirre then went on to anchor the Raiders’ third-place 200 yard freestyle relay team. Aguirre lost his chance to compete at the state meet as a sophomore due to the coronavirus pandemic, but placed eighth in the 100 freestyle as a freshman in 2019.
