Quartet of GHS swimmers advance to state meet

By JON KLEINKNECHT

Inquirer Sports Editor

sports@galioninquirer.com

BOWLING GREEN — It was a records-smashing per­for­mance exactly when they needed it.
Four mem­bers of the Galion High School boy’s swim team — senior Con­nor Kempf, junior Zane Ekin, plus sopho­mores Sam DeN­ero and Chad Karnes — com­bined to break eight … yes, eight … school records in last week’s Divi­sion II Dis­trict Meet held here. Their reward is a trip to the state meet this week in Can­ton.
The quar­tet teamed up to place third in the 400 freestyle relay with a GHS-best time of 3:20.44.
They took fourth in the 200 med­ley relay at 1:40.92 for another school mark.
DeN­ero was sec­ond in the 50 freestyle with a 21.95, best­ing a GHS record set by Dave Agee 33 years ago.
Kempf fin­ished fourth in the 100 back­stroke with a record-breaking swim of 55.35.
The relay squads, plus DeN­ero and Kempf in the above-mentioned indi­vid­ual races, will com­pete in the state meet with pre­lim­i­nar­ies begin­ning Thurs­day evening in Can­ton.
Ekin and Karnes each broke two indi­vid­ual school records, although their plac­ing in the dis­trict did not qual­ify them for the state meet.
Ekin now has­GHS stan­dards in the 200 indi­vid­ual med­ley with a clock­ing of 2:03.41 (6th in the dis­trict), as well as the 100 but­ter­fly at 54.66 (8th).
Karnes recorded a 1:50.55 in the 200 freestyle (8th) and swam a GHS-best 5:03.59 in the 500 freestyle (8th).
“The day was excep­tional with the boys’ team qual­i­fy­ing for the state meet and for break­ing eight team records in the process,” noted long-time Tigers’ head coach Ted Tem­ple. “Con­nor Kempf is the grad­u­at­ing senior for the boys. His lead­er­ship and swim­ming will be dif­fi­cult to replace next sea­son. He has qual­i­fied for the state the last two sea­sons.”
As a team, the Tigers fin­ished fifth in the dis­trict with 145 points.
The Lady Tigers had five swim­mers in the dis­trict meet. They fin­ished 33rd with 7 points.
Top per­form­ers were: Car­o­line Shi­fley, 12th in the 200 indi­vid­ual med­ley (2:26.12 per­sonal record ) and 17th in the 100 but­ter­fly (1:05.46 per­sonal record); plus Shi­fley, Kennedy Gregg, Becca Rig­don and Kris­ten Bene­dict in the 200 med­ley relay with a 16th-place time of 2:02.06.
The 400 freestyle relay quar­tet of Shi­fley, Rig­don, Saman­tha Alt­stadt and Bene­dict was 17th at 4:06.03.
“The girls fin­ished strong for the sea­son,” Tem­ple stated. “Three of the girls had per­sonal best times at the meet. The med­ley relay also posted a sea­son best time. Los­ing Kris­ten Bene­dict and Becca Rig­don to grad­u­a­tion will be a huge loss for this team in both lead­er­ship and swim­ming.”
GHS isn’t the only school in the Galion area to be send­ing swim­mers to Can­ton.
Kaleb John­son of Crest­line was sec­ond at the dis­trict in the boys’ 100 breast­stroke (1:00.11).
Colonel Crawford’s 200 freestyle relay team of Trey Crase, Clay Fogle, Ian Kochheiser and Logan Pfeifer took first in the dis­trict with a school record 1:28.21.
Those same four were sec­ond in the 400 freestyle relay at 3:16.79.
Fogle, Kochheiser, Pfeifer and Nic Roe were third in the 200 med­ley relay with a 1:40.52.
In addi­tion, Pfeifer was sec­ond in the 100 freestyle at 47.95; and Fogle swam a 22.30 for fourth place in the 50 freestyle.
As a team, the Eagles placed sec­ond, 49 points behind cham­pion San­dusky Perkins.

Posted by Jon Kleinknecht on Feb 17 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.