PLYMOUTH – It was a night to celebrate the commitment of Plymouth’s senior swimmers and the girl’s team fell just short of a win in that celebration falling to Wawasee by a 94-88 final.
The Plymouth boys with just eight swimmers held their own against the Warriors but fell 139-28.
It became a night of hurdles for the swimmers as the electronic timing system malfunctioned and early on in the meet, the timing was sent back to a past era as times were taken by hand and then compiled by hand to determine the scoring.
It didn’t seem to bother the Plymouth girls who came just shy of an NLC win in honoring their senior’s diver Maggie Bradway, Raven Gritton, Rachel Jacobs, and Claudia Marohn.
“We love our seniors we’ve had a really strong group,” said Plymouth swim coach Haley Church. “It would have been nice to win tonight but I’m so happy with our performances, especially with the (electronic) timing to go down. That plays with your mental game.”
“It was the old fashioned way to do things but that may have taken some of the pressure off,” she said. “It just let us celebrate our seniors.”
While the girls didn’t take a first-place finish on the night they did take second in all, and third in all but one event leading to the strong team score that was nearly able to secure a victory.
“They have been pushing so hard,” said Church. “We’ve had 35 girls on the roster and that’s a really large number. It’s exciting to see so many first year swimmers. Aumrie (Weiss) is a rookie and has made her way into the ‘A’ relay (200 and 400 freestyle). Izzie (Wray) has been dropping lots of time and has found a spot just by volunteering for the 500 (free) and found out she’s pretty good at it.”
Weiss was part of relay teams that took second-place finishes and took a second-place individual finish in the 50 free and a fourth in the 100 free.
Wray had a personal fourth-place finish in the 500 free.
“COVID has impacted us with a little bit of quarantine and that’s impacted some of our times,” said Church “But that’s why it’s nice to have a deep team.”
On the boy’s side of the ledger, lone senior Joe Cartwright had a big night with the only Plymouth first-place finish in both the girl’s and boys meets taking a top time in the 100 breast stroke with a 1:13.41.
“Joe is really contending and this is his first year really competing so it’s been fun to see him really step into that role,” said Church. “David (Schadek) and Ashton (Artrip) are newbies and they are hungry and that makes a difference.”
Missing from this night was sophomore Fitz Holm who has the team’s top times in the early going but was out on this night due to COVID quarantine.
“It’s a small team but it’s like a family so it’s really cool,” said Church.
Plymouth is in the water again at the Bardwell Aquatic Center on Tuesday with an NLC meet against Mishawaka.
