With less than a month of the season left to go, the girls swim season is taking the turn towards the final wall.
The Smoky Hill Invitational is one of the key mile markers of the season for a few local teams and the results of the Jan. 11 meet showed a pointing in the right direction.
Runner-up a year ago, Cherokee Trail won the championship this time as it finished atop a quality field that included a few top-10 caliber teams at the upcoming Class 5A state meet, while the host Buffaloes were fourth and Eaglecrest eighth.
Full 2025 Smoky Hill Invitational girls swim meet results, here
The Cougars — under the direction of coach Dalton Tainter-Paar this season — accrued 740 points from the 12 events held over a two-day span at Smoky Hill and include one event champion. Cherokee Trail did not have a winner at the 2023 meet, but senior Ava Zadigian captured a first place this time.
Zadigian touched the wall in the 100 yard backstroke in a time of 58.21 seconds, which put her in front of Heritage’s Elise Ramsden, who was the defending event champion. That result in the third-to-last event of the meet helped make sure the Cougars were not overtaken by Heritage, which finished as the runner-up with 674 points and third-place Cherry Creek, which scored 651.
Cherokee Trail’s 200 yard medley relay team of Zadigian, fellow senior Ella Drakulich, junior Giavelle Salsig and sophomore Felicity Meijer set a good tone with a runner-up finish in the meet’s opening event. The group dropped three seconds between prelims and finals with a 1:51.27, but winner Cherry Creek also dropped the same margin.
The Cougars had four placers in the 200 freestyle (led by the B final winner in junior Aria Clouse) and 200 IM (Zadigian took third), while senior Olivia Jisa took fifth in the 100 butterfly, Meijer was third in the 100 freestyle, Saliger fifth in the 500 freestyle and Drakulich third in the 100 breaststroke as points came all throughout.
Coach Scott Cohen’s Smoky Hill team racked up 50 more points than the previous season and that came with a big boost from the performances of juniors Cameryn Walkup and Mia Noffsinger.
Walkup owned Smoky Hill Invitational titles in the 200 and 500 yard freestyles from last season and she repeated in both distance freestyle events this season.
In the 200, she swam a time of 1 minute, 53.66 seconds, which was just a shade off the 1:53.40 that won it in 2024, but it was more than seven seconds after than runner-up Katie Forbes of Columbine. Walkup also had a decisive victory in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:13.59 to the 5:22.09 of runner-up Faith Leitel of Heritage.
Noffsinger, meanwhile, tasted victory at the Smoky Hill Invitational for the first time after she was second twice in her freshman season and once last season. Noffsinger broke through in the 200 yard individual medley with her time of 2:09.95 that was nearly four full seconds faster than runner-up Eloise Emig of Heritage. It was also more than two seconds faster than she swam in the event a year earlier (2:12.63) when she was second.
Walkup and Noffsinger combined with fellow junior Greta Smolenski and sophomore Caroline Kaiser for a second-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay to cap a strong day.
Other top performances for Smoky Hill came from Kaiser (second in the 100 freestyle and fifth in the 50 free), sophomores Sophie Noffsinger (third in the 500 freestyle and B final winner in the 100 butterfly) and Lyla Bailey (sixth in the Jan. 10 diving competition) plus the 200 medley relay (both Noffsingers, senior Morgan Goodrich and junior Eve Niemann) and 200 freestyle relay (Goodrich, Walkup, Smolenski and Kaiser), which both took third place.
Coach Jillian Fehringer’s Eaglecrest team came into the meet coming off its first Centennial League dual victory — a defeat of Mullen two days earlier — and finished in the same eighth place spot it occupied in 2024, but with a whopping 72.5 more points.
The Raptors got a tie for 11th place from senior Lin Naraoka in the 100 freestyle plus an 11-12 finish from sophomore Sadie Balou and senior Alex Jones in the 100 breaststroke to lead the way individually.
Eaglecrest finished the meet with its best performance when it took fifth place in the 400 yard freestyle relay. The team of seniors Jones, Naraoka and Kendall Halfacre plus junior Cailynn Baldermann swam a season-best time of 3:54.41 in the prelims that easy got it qualified for the 5A state meet and followed that with a 3:59.04 in the championship final.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
