The Smoky Hill girls swim team improved by five places from the previous season with its performance at the Class 5A state meet — which concluded Friday evening at the Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center — and the future looks bright.
Scott Cohen returned to coaching duties with the Buffaloes and they finished in 18th place with a total of 73 points — 52 more than in the 2023 season — and did so with only one senior involved in the scoring.
Sophomore Cameryn Walkup had another outstanding season in the distance freestyle events with top-six finishes in each, while fellow sophomore Mya Noffsinger earned extra swims in the 200 yard individual medley and 100 yard backstroke, while the Buffaloes finished in 13th place in both the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays.
FULL LIST OF AURORA’S TOP-20 PLACERS AT THE 5A GIRLS STATE MEET, HERE
COMPLETE 5A GIRLS STATE SWIM MEET TEAMS SCORES & RESULTS, HERE
Walkup qualified for the championship finals of the 500 freestyle for the second time in as many varsity seasons and she moved up from eighth a year ago to sixth as she shaved nearly a full second off her pre-state seeding time. She was even better in the 200 freestyle, when she finished in fifth place, which was right on her seed coming in.
Noffsinger scored twice individually for the Buffaloes with a 16th-place finish in the 200 IM (in which she was seeded 14th before the meet), though she improved her season-best time by nearly a half second with a 2:10.76. She also had a 20th-place result in the 100 backstroke, which was also three spots below her initial seed despite an improvement of 0.3 of a second.
Smoky Hill was denied points in the 400 freestyle relay when officials ruled there was an early start during the prelims, which kept them out of what would have been a spot in the consolation finals, but the Buffaloes scored in both of the other relays.
Freshman Caroline Kaiser was a member of both scoring relays and teamed with the sophomore trio of Walkup, Noffsinger and Eve Niemann on the 200 medley relay, which came into state seeded 16th and moved up three spots.
Sophomore Greta Smolenski, junior Morgan Goodrich and senior Alana Behrens teamed with Kaiser on the 200 freestyle relay, which slipped one spot from its pre-meet seeding, but finished with a season-fastest time of 1:40.49.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
