THORNTON | Coming off a third-place showing at the Centennial “A” League Championships the previous week, the Cherokee Trail girls swim team finished in 13th place at the Class 5A state meet when it concluded Friday.
Over two days of competition at the Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center, the Cougars amassed 97 points to finish fourth among the league teams in the field — as they came in behind state champion Cherry Creek, fifth-place Grandview and ninth-place Arapahoe — with three relay teams that placed in the top 12, plus two consolation finals swims apiece for senior Morgan Walker and junior Sarah Woren.
Coach Kevin Chatham’s Cherokee Trail team got back freshman sprint standout Jameson Young, who missed the league championship meet as she recovered from a nagging injury, and she scored with a consolation finals appearance as well.
Relays put up the most points for the Cougars, who were led by the ninth-place finish of the 200 yard freestyle team of senior Mckenna Mazeski, Woren and freshmen Young and Bella Lane. The group touched the wall in 1 minutes, 38.51 seconds — 0.06 faster than they’d gone in prelims to make the championship final — which brought them in just 0.16 of a second behind eighth-place Grandview.
Cherokee Trail came into the meet seeded 13th in the 200 medley relay, but the team of seniors Mazeski and Walker, Young and junior Emme Metzmaker swam nearly a second faster than their seed time to grab the 10th and final spot in the championship final. They shaved 0.02 of a second off their prelim time in the final with a 1:49.44 that also put them 10th.
The Cougars came a fraction of a second from qualifying all three relay teams for the championship finals, as the 400 freestyle team of Walker, Woren, Metzmaker and Lane finished 0.11 of a second behind Chatfield for the 10th spot despite a prelim time that was more than two seconds faster than their seed time. They were even faster in the consolation final with a time of 3:34.91 to finish 12th overall.
Individually, Walker and Woren were both seeded to score in two individual events and they both did just that.
Woren finished 15th and 17th in the 50 and 100 yard freestyles, respectively, while Walker’s top result was a 16th in the 100 butterfly to go with a 19th in the 100 backstroke. Young finished 13th in the 50 freestyle after she was seeded 17th and she missed making the consolation final of the 100 breaststroke by one spot.
Cherokee Trail had seven other individual state qualifiers that didn’t make it out of prelims, though Metzmaker was close in the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly and freshman Aria Clouse in the 200 individual medley. Only two of the team’s 10 individual qualifiers were seniors in Walker and Mazeski.
The Cougars’ highlights of the season included the first Centennial League dual meet victory over Cherry Creek in program history (story, here), while they sent Chatham up the ladder multiple times to change school records.
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports