Regis Jesuit lost a significant amount of points from last season’s near-miss run at the Class 5A girls swimming state championship.
The Raiders made up for it with improved depth in addition to the rise of some young swimmers, which landed the state runner-up trophy for a third consecutive season.
Regis Jesuit swimmers earned a large proportion of the spots on the 2025 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Girls Swim Team — as determined primarily by performance at the state meet — which also includes single individuals from Grandview and Rangeview.
Coach Nick Frasersmith’s Regis Jesuit team saw the state title slip away in the final event of the 2024 meet and then graduated a group of seniors that included two-time 100 yard breaststroke state champion in Charlotte Burnham as well as divers Maya Kriz and Sarah Mann, who finished second and third.
Meanwhile, Cherry Creek got even stronger and cruised to its fifth consecutive state title. Though more than 100 points behind the Bruins this time, the Raiders cleared Fairview by a whopping 86 points for second place despite not winning a single event.
Regis Jesuit’s runner-up finish looked different due to the graduation from last season’s team. Without the points scored by the departed swimmers and divers, the Raiders needed contributions from many young swimmers and most definitely got them.
Sophomores Natalie Daum and Ava Terella especially rose to the occasion and earned two All-Aurora first team spots apiece.
Daum went into the state meet as the No. 1 seed in both the 200 yard individual medley and 100 yard breaststroke and though a state title eluded her in both, she was the area’s best with third-place finishes in both. Daum touched the wall in 2:05.37 in the finals of the 200 yard IM in third behind Elliana Wiesen of Valor Christian and ThunderRidge’s Annabeth Town, who were there two seconds faster. Her fastest time of the year was 2:05.27 when she won the event at The REX Coaches Invitational.
Regis Jesuit’s streak of state titles in the 100 yard breaststroke came to an end at five — Sophia Bradac won the 2020 title, followed by wins in 2021 and 2022 by Emma Weber (who has gone on to swim in the Olympics) and the 2023 and 2024 titles of Burnham — but Daum finished just two spots down on the medal podium in third. Her finals time of 1:03.97 brought her in behind Boulder’s Hazel Huilman and Cherry Creek’s Sydney Fernstrom. Daum’s top time of the year in the event also came at The REX Invitational with a 1:03.31.
Terella earned the All-Aurora spots in the 100 yard butterfly and 100 backstroke, in which she came the closest to winning a state title for Regis Jesuit. Terella touched the wall in 56.45 seconds, which was only behind Elise Ramsden of Heritage (56.11), and represented a rise of three spots from her pre-meet seeding of fifth.
Terella’s season-best time of 56.15 in the prelims of the 100 butterfly put her in the finals, where she clocked a 56.29 to place fifth.
Regis Jesuit junior Lexi Stramel ruled the Aurora area in distance freestyle events, as she finished third in both the 200 and 500 freestyles. Stramel made the biggest rise in the 500 freestyle, in which she was seeded No. 11 coming into state and went more than six seconds faster in the finals with a 5:06.11. She rose from the No. 8 seed in the 200 freestyle to third with a time of 1:53.01 that marked a two-second improvement.
Senior Elise Kittleson earned the All-Aurora first team spot in the 100 yard freestyle, in which she made a six-spot jump from 2024 with a 10th-place finish. She went into the meet as the No. 15 overall seed and had her best performance of the season in the prelims with a time of 53.40 seconds that was a second-place better than her seed time. Kittleson was slightly slower in the finals (53.85) as she touched the wall 10th.
Daum and Terella also earned All-Aurora status with relays, as they both swam legs of the 200 yard medley and 400 yard freestyle relays. Joining the duo on the 200 medley relay (which placed third) were junior Jamie Young and sophomore Mia Staubli, while the 400 yard freestyle (rounded out by Kittleson and freshman Elsa Osborne) placed fourth. Kittleson, Young, Osborne and sophomore Marz Nystrom combined on a fifth-place 200 yard freestyle team that edged Grandview by 0.15 of a second.
The only non-Regis Jesuit swimmer to earn an All-Aurora first team spot is Grandview sophomore Makenna Dyk, who earned the mantle of the area’s fastest sprinter.
Dyk — the only returning point scorer in the swim events for coach James Boone’s Wolves — won the Centennial “A” League championship in the 50 yard freestyle and went into state as the No. 3 seed. In a final that included Pine Creek superstar Madison Mintenko, Dyk finished in a tie for fifth with a time of 23.89 seconds, which bettered her season best (from prelims) by 0.02 of a second.
The All-Aurora 1-meter diving spot goes to Rangeview senior Hailey McDonald, who was the lone area qualifier (out of seven) to make it all the way to the finals.
McDonald (a Vista PEAK Prep student who competed for coach Robin Allen’s Raiders’ co-op team) earned a season-high score of 411.65 points to place 13th, coincidentally the same place as her coach, Sarah Mortensen, who scored the last points for Rangeview at the state meet in 2019.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
