THORNTON | For the third straight season, the Regis Jesuit girls swim team came home with the runner-up trophy from the Class 5A state meet.
The Raiders saw the state title slip away to Cherry Creek in the final event of the 2024 meet at the Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center, but they and the rest of the field entered the same pool Friday afternoon knowing another title for the Bruins was all but a foregone conclusion.
While Cherry Creek cruised to a fifth straight state championship, coach Nick Frasersmith’s young Regis Jesuit team performed well enough to again bring home hardware. The Raiders didn’t have an individual champion, but the performances of junior Lexi Stramel and sophomores Ava Terella and Natalie Daum helped them accrue 312 points, second-most only behind the Bruins’ 456.
Smoky Hill racked up 111 points to place 12th, Grandview finished 14th with 104.5, Cherokee Trail collected 87.5 to take 17th and Rangeview tied for 28th with eight points accrued Thursday from diver Hailey McDonald.
The top individual finish among Aurora area swimmers came from Regis Jesuit’s Terella, who finished in second place in the 100 yard backstroke. Heritage’s Elise Ramsden swam a time of 56.11 seconds and touched out the 56.45 of Terella, who also placed fifth in the 100 yard butterfly.
Stramel and Daum each finished in third place in a pair of individual events to help boost the Raiders, who also claimed top-five results in all three relays. Daum came into the state meet as the top seed in both the 200 yard individual medley and 100 yard breaststroke, but she finished third in both. Stramel took third in the 200 and 500 freestyles.
Smoky Hill earned 111 points for its highest point total since way back in 2011 (when it scored 121 in a sixth-place team finish) and was boosted by juniors Cameryn Walkup and Mia Noffsinger, who appeared in a championship final apiece.
Walkup — coming off a Centennial “A” League Championship meet in which she won two events and was named the league’s Swimmer of the Year — finished in fifth place in the 200 yard freestyle, while she also garnered 12th in the 500 free. Noffsinger, meanwhile, secured fourth place in the 200 yard individual medley and won the consolation heat of the 100 yard backstroke for coach Scott Cohen’s Buffaloes.
Grandview turned the page from several impactful seniors that graduated after last season and its point total went from 205 (when it was sixth) to 104.5, but that came with some strong performances from a young group.
Coach James Boone’s Wolves were led by sophomore Makenna Dyk, who tied for fifth in the 50 yard freestyle, the event she won a league championship in a week earlier. Dyk and freshman Paige Gust were the Grandview swimmers who placed in two events, while its relay performances were led by the sixth-place result of the 200 yard freestyle team.
Cherokee Trail — in the first season under Dalton Tainter-Paar as head coach — found points tougher to come by than the previous season, as the Cougars earned 87.5 after they had 155.5 the previous season.
Big performances for Cherokee Trail came from seniors, however, as Ava Zadigian (the Centennial “A” League champion in the 100 yard backstroke), placed eighth in the event as well as 12th in the 200 yard individual medley, while fellow senior Ella Drakulich placed 13th in the 200 IM and 14th in the 100 yard breaststroke.
Sophomore Felicity Meijer also placed in two events for the Cougars, whose top relay finish came from the 200 yard medley team, which finished sixth.
Rangeview got on the state scoreboard for the first time since 2019 with the 13th-place showing of McDonald in the 1-meter diving competition the previous day.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
2025 CLASS 5A GIRLS STATE SWIM MEET
Feb. 7 at Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center
Team scores: 1. Cherry Creek 456 points; 2. REGIS JESUIT 312; 3. Fairview 226; 4. Arapahoe 223; 5. Pine Creek 218; 6. Valor Christian 187; 7. Fossil Ridge 182; 8. Boulder 176; 9. Heritage 156; 10. Rocky Mountain 148; 11. Ralston Valley 143; 12. SMOKY HILL 111; 13. Rock Canyon 109; 14. GRANDVIEW 104.5; 15. Brighton 101; 16. ThunderRidge 96; 17. CHEROKEE TRAIL 87.5; 18. Columbine 78; 19. Chaparral 77; 20. Chatfield 52.5; 21. Denver East 45.5; 22. Legacy 45; 23. Mountain Vista 43; 24. Legend 38; 25. Northfield 21; 26. Arvada West 18; 27. Greeley West 17; T28. RANGEVIEW 8; T28. Fort Collins 8; 30. Horizon 5
Event champions: 200 yard medley relay — 1. Cherry Creek, 1 minute, 42.38 seconds; 200 yard freestyle — 1. Madison Mintenko (Pine Creek), 1 minute, 43.20 seconds; 200 yard individual medley— 1. Elliana Wiesen (Valor Christian), 2 minutes, 3.42 seconds; 50 yard freestyle — 1. Kate McKinnon (Cherry Creek), 22.79 seconds; 100 yard butterfly — 1. Hazel Huilman (Boulder), 53.98 seconds; 100 yard freestyle — 1. Kate McKinnon (Cherry Creek), 49.91 seconds; 500 yard freestyle — 1. Madison Mintenko (Pine Creek), 4 minutes, 51.50 seconds; 200 yard freestyle relay — 1. Fossil Ridge, 1 minute, 34.66 seconds; 100 yard backstroke — 1. Elise Ramsden (Heritage), 56.11 seconds; 100 yard breaststroke — 1. Hazel Huilman (Boulder), 1 minute, 2.50 seconds; 400 yard freestyle relay — 1. Cherry Creek, 3 minutes, 21.52 seconds (Colorado state record/5A state record, previous 3:22.42 by Regis Jesuit’s Thomas, Todd, DeBever, Franklin in 2011)
