AURORA | It seems to Cameryn Walkup like all she’s done lately is practice, but when she raced at the Smoky Hill Invitational girls swim meet, nobody could touch her.
The Smoky Hill sophomore — in the midst of a tough stretch of training with her high school and club teams — recorded two massive victories in the Saturday meet held in her home pool, as she cruised to winning the 200 and 500 yard freestyle events.
Walkup’s victories, two championship finals appearances from fellow sophomore Mya Noffsinger and a runner-up from sophomore Eve Niemann, senior Christianna Duthie’s performance on the diving board and three top-five relay finishes helped coach Scott Cohen’s Buffaloes to fifth place among 14 scoring teams.
Smoky Hill managed to move up one spot from its showing in 2023 — as it earned 127 more points — and finished in front of Columbine, the team that won the meet the previous three seasons.
Walkup was one of only two swimmers — along with Columbine’s Katie Forbes — to record two victories and she wasn’t really challenged in the process. After she combined with Noffsinger, Niemann and freshman Caroline Kaiser on a fourth-place 200 medley relay, Walkup started out with a win by seven-plus seconds in the 200 freestyle. She was 1.37 seconds faster in the event than she was in the prelims with her finals time of 1 minute, 53.40 seconds.
Later, Walkup picked up an even more decisive victory in the 500 freestyle as she again dropped around a second with a time of 5:10.40 that was well in front of the 5:23.94 turned in by runner-up Aria Clouse of Cherokee Trail. She closed the meet by swimming the fastest leg for her team (which also included senior Alana Behrens, junior Morgan Goodrich and Noffsinger) as the Buffs’ edged Legend by 0.04 of a second for fourth in the 400 freestyle relay.
Noffsinger’s outstanding day saw her finish only behind Forbes in the 200 individual medley with a time of 2:12.63. She had the fifth-fastest time in prelims, but swam 4.3 seconds faster in the championship final to jump over those in front of her other than Forbes.
Besides her relay work, Noffsinger dropped 0.30 of a second between the prelims and finals of the 100 backstroke, but two swimmers dropped more time as she finished in fifth.
Niemann gave Smoky Hill a strong finish to the individual swimming events when she was second behind Forbes in the 100 breaststroke. She was second in prelims and held that spot in the finals with a time of 1:10.04.
Duthie posted the best finish among local competitors in the 1-meter diving competition, as she earned a score of 371.50 points to place fifth.
Smoky Hill returns to competition with a home meet against Grandview on Jan. 23.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
