Click here for full MCPS Championship meet results
(For correct team totals, see below)
It's no secret -- after winning a second straight Montgomery County championship, the Whitman girls are set to contend for another Metros title (Photo by Drew Meyer).
As Churchill Coach Rodney Van Tassell scanned the updated team standings posted behind the starting blocks midway through Saturday’s Montgomery County Public Schools Swimming and Diving Championships, he noted the deficit facing his boys’ team and calmly returned to his end of the pool deck.
The Bulldogs trailed defending champions Wootton by eight points, but the margin could have been much wider. Despite not winning a single event to that point and watching the Patriots claim four, Churchill remained in perfect position to surge back to a county title.
“If we just swim the way we’re supposed to, I like our chances to win it,” Van Tassell said. “We’re stronger in the second half of the meet.”
Churchill wasted no time in beginning its comeback as juniors Odin Soevik, Samuel Lee, Colin Asbury and Austin Cole set a meet record while winning the very next event – the 200 free relay (1:28.95). Trailing going into the final leg, Cole overtook Walter Johnson senior Jordan Ray to capture a critical victory ahead of the Wildcats (1:29.18) and third-place Wootton (1:29.88).
From there, the Bulldogs’ depth simply proved too much for Wootton to overcome as Churchill notched a pair of top-nine finishes in the 100 back (Lee finished fourth, Todd Erickson placed ninth), two top-six finishes in the 100 breast (Harrison Gu – third, Collin Stanhope – sixth) and a third-place finish in the 400 free relay to seal a 351.50-335.50 win over the Patriots and reclaim the county championship. Walter Johnson took third (251) and was followed by Bethesda Chevy-Chase (183) and Blake (180.50).
Sparked by another dominant performance across both freestyle relays, the Whitman girls claimed a second consecutive championship, piling up 354 points to hold off Churchill (315). Wootton (263) took third, Walter Johnson placed fourth (233) and Sherwood rounded out the top five (225) of the 19-team girls’ field.
“We really wanted to win this,” Cole said. “We knew their top seeds were faster than ours in a lot of events, but depth was the key for us. A lot of our swimmers dropped time today, and we had some unexpected placings from other teams that helped us out.”
Cole took second in the 50 (22.17) and 100 free (48.41) and the Bulldogs picked up four more second place finishes from Timothy Faerber (diving), Gu (200 IM), Brian Xiao (100 fly), Christopher Wysocki (500 free). But it was Churchill’s edge with its secondary qualifiers that made the biggest difference as Wootton won six total events but could not pull out the victory.
“We tripled our win total from last year, which is a great accomplishment,” Wootton Coach Howard Blume said. “But we just didn’t have enough second swimmers to back it up in many of the events.”
Wootton senior Sean Rhinehart won the 50 free (22.06), sophomore Matt Gibson took the 100 free (48.33) and Michael Fu placed first in the 100 breast (1:00.16), adding to the individual event haul the Patriots began Thursday when senior Thomas Finn won the 500 free (4:41.08) and Friday when senior Jordan Lesser eked out a win in the 1 meter diving. Lesser’s 428.95 total was just enough to hold off Faerber (427.85). Finn, Fu, Gibson and Rhinehart won the 200 medley relay to start Saturday’s meet (1:38.93), Fu, Kenneth Ke, Derek Jensen and Kevin Fu placed third in the 200 free relay and Rhinehart, Fu, Gibson and Finn finished second in the 400 free.
Matt Gibson (center) won the 100 free as Wootton got off to a hot start but the Patriots couldn't hold off Churchill (Photo by David He).
Walter Johnson’s Garrett Powell, a junior transfer from Georgetown Prep, won the 200 free (1:42.97), broke a county meet record to win the 100 back (52.09) and teamed with freshman Jean-Marc Nugent, Ray and sophomore Barry Mangold to edge Wootton by .36 seconds in the 400 free relay (3:14.21).
Gaithersburg junior Tyler Pham powered past Gu and Fu to take the 200 IM (1:56.64) and finished less than one second behind Powell to claim second in the 100 back (53.03). Blake senior Spencer Sterling won the 100 fly (52.33) and placed second in the 200 free (1:44.42).
Depth also proved critical for the Whitman girls who posted two top-six finishes in five different events with a lineup loaded with versatility. Junior Reia Tong notched the Vikings’ first win of the meet, beating defending meet champion Emily Ryczek in the 50 free (24.08) and finished a close second to Sherwood’s senior sprinter in the 100 free (53.02 to Ryczek’s 52.11). But Tong’s most impressive race was the 400 free relay where she needed only 50 meters to turn a two-second deficit to Walter Johnson into a two-second advantage and propel the Vikings to a meet record time of 3:33.46.
“I was just trying to catch up to Walter Johnson after they started out fast and then give us as big of a lead as I could going into the last leg,” Tong said. “I knew Churchill was going to catch up, so I just had to give it my all.”
The same foursome of Tong, junior Victoria Kuhn and sophomores Audrey Gould and Charlotte Meyer set county and meet records in the 200 free relay with a blistering time of 1:37.57. Meyer (200 IM), senior diver Emily Schmidt (1mtr), Kuhn (100 back) and Gould (100 breast) each tallied second place finishes for the Vikings who will try to cap their unbeaten season with a second straight Metros title next weekend.
“The relays are key for us,” Whitman coach Geoff Schaefer said. “You can’t underestimate a good team like Good Counsel. I know they’re going to go for the medley relay and they’re the favorites in the 200 free as well because they have some speed. We’ve got Reia, but they have Sarah Haase to match her. So it’s a chess game next week and I can’t wait to see what the lineups look like.”
Walter Johnson senior Elizabeth Pepper defended her county titles in both the 200 IM (2:05.18) and 100 fly (56.05), earning All-America consideration in both as she looks to make up for a disappointing Metros meet last season.
“I knew both events were going to be very close, but I just tried to push myself and they turned out well,” Pepper said. “Hopefully Metros will be better than last year. I’ve had a great season so far and hopefully all the preparation will pay off next week.”
Sarah Kannan and Whitman were all smiles Saturday as they defended their county championship in style (Photo by Drew Meyer).
Churchill junior Natalya Ares won the 200 free (1:50.87) with an All-America consideration time and finished second to Pepper in the 100 fly (56.96). Gaithersburg junior Ellen Anderson also clocked an All-America consideration time Thursday night when she won the 500 free (4:55.69) for the second straight years. Walter Johnson’s Natsumi Horikawa was the lone freshman to win an event when she took first in the 100 back (58.90) and Poolesville sophomore Diana Hanson (1:06.72) narrowly edged Gould (1:06.97) in the 100 breast. Wootton’s Kristina Li, Jessica Chen, Allie Klatzkin and Annie Fagan won the 200 medley relay (1:53.39) and Walter Johnson junior Annie Kastler took first in diving (368.25).
“This was a good warmup for Metros,” Schaefer said. “We’re looking foward to completing the three-meet championship series — divisionals, county championships and Metros. This is the second block and we’re ready to get to the last one and see how we do.”
Click here for full MCPS Championship meet results
Team Totals
Boys
1. Churchill – 351.5
2. Wootton – 335.5
3. Walter Johnson – 251
4. Bethesda Chevy-Chase – 183
5. Blake – 180.50
6. Blair – 167
7. Whitman – 165.5
8. Richard Montgomery – 118
9. Northwest – 90.5
10. Poolesville – 79
11. Quince Orchard – 65.5
12. Gaithersburg – 63
13. Magruder – 52
14. Clarksburg – 50
15. Kennedy – 36
16. Paint Branch – 31
17. Sherwood – 27
17. Springbrook – 27
19. Damascus – 18
20. Northwood – 16
21. Watkins Mill – 14
22. Rockville – 4
Girls
1. Whitman – 354
2. Churchill – 315
3. Wootton – 263
4. Walter Johnson – 233
5. Sherwood – 225
6. Northwest – 176
7. Blair – 116
8. Magruder – 115
9. Poolesville – 98
10. Richard Montgomery – 94
11. Bethesda-Chevy Chase – 89
12. Quince Orchard – 82
13. Gaithersburg – 53
14. Northwood – 39
15. Blake – 33
16. Rockville – 18
17. Springbrook – 12
18. Kennedy – 8
19. Seneca Valley
Tags: Maryland High School Swimming, Montgomery County High School Swimming, Sarah Haase
stats corner
Great story! Are you posting full meet results? Please do!
while their link here doesn’t work, full results are available at http://wiki.reachforthewall.com/Results_Statistics/Meet_Results?meetId=3005&type=hs
Way to go RFTW having results up so fast – super job !
It is good that RFTW finally wrote something about winners from schools outside Division I. Correction in the English language to show unbiased reporting. “Tyler Pham powered past Fu and Gu”. Were you at the meet since Tyler led the 200 IM from the beginning? Neither Harrison Gu nor Michael Fu came even close. There were several parents taping the event (myself included) if RFTW needs a copy to see the race.
I am Tyler Pham.
Settle down Tyler. You swim with the big boys next weekend. This is not the time to get pompous.
Mr. Brooks was at the meet and he watched all of the races closely from the pool deck. Instead hurling ambiguous insults, try to be nice. A few years ago NOTHING was this detailed when it came to writing about the results.
We should thank him for taking the time to be at the 6 hour meet, not slam him.
EXCELLENT COVERAGE MATT BROOKS!
the 2nd response was not from me and I’m not Tyler Pham
clearly the second response from the english language was from someone else, because the first one said “several parents INCLUDING MYSELF”, aka they’re a parent, and clearly not a swimmer. someone’s just trying to make tyler look cocky
I want Good Counsel to win. Something about their ability to get all the local girls to go there and the whole sense of community is what I can identify with. I can’t wait to be able to drive my girl there next year from Baltimore just so she can be a part of it.
“RV Parent”, nice alias. Your Rockville baiting is worn out. We got your message last July, then August, that Rockville is not a community team.
RV Parent, I see you continue to try to bring down Rockville, but to no success. Good Counsel is nothing like Rockville, they are just lucky that the kids want to go there because of the rich swimming tradition and great teammate-ship. Rockville is the same way, we have brought our team to the top of A division because other swimmers have heard how fun the team is and how many friends that they can make by being a part of the team. Yes we did have some swimmers that did leave because they thought they could have more fun on other teams, (Matt and Andrew Gibson), but there sister saw the fun in it and continued to stay. So if you are gonna keep bashing rockville again and again you should get your facts straight. You are probably just form TW or another pool that is just jealous of our success. Just give up.
wait till all that home grown talent gets to high school. Richard Montgomery is gonna win metros every year.
can’t speak for RV Parent, but I am indeed jealous I don’t swim for the Rays. I live right next door. they turned me down though, said I lived too close.
Stop hating on the Rays. Rays is a fun team and I love swimming with my neighbors from Poolsville, Germantown, and Potomac. anyways remember it’s not the summer lol. let’s get back to high school stuff.
My son is awesome at swimming.
Again with trying to bring down Rockville. All you people are just jealous because you are stuck in bad divisions and just don’t have the team spirit. Just because some of the people might not be from around Rockville doesnt mean that they can not experience one of the best times a person can have on a swim team in MCSL. I personally switched my kids from a pool to Rockville because my other pool just wasn’t as spirited. We would always have boring and unoriginal themes, and then our friends told us about Rockville and we knew that is where we were destined to go. They have by far some of the best spirit in MCSL, and with great spirit brings great swimming and swimmers which is the reason why Rockville is as good as we are. Coaching is another thing, when my kids were on their old team, we were stuck in divisions D and F and the coaches just couldnt get the kids motivated or get them to siwm fast. The Rockville coaches have trained my kids to what they are today, and being on Rockville is one of the greatest decisions i have made in my life.
enough already. this site is about HIGH SCHOOL swimming. no one really cares about the rockville rays, except for the few of you who can’t seem to find a better place to vent your latent frustrations. let’s celebrate the good work of matt brooks and the washington post, who are doing an amazing job covering HIGH SCHOOL swimming.
Good luck to all at Metros. And if you don’t win, congratulate your great competitors, Don’t Blame the Burrito!
pretty sure i did congratulate everyone, thanks
“Good luck to all at Metros. And if you don’t win, congratulate your great competitors, Don’t Blame the Burrito!”
Was the end of that necessary, whatsoever? It’s people like you that take the fun spirit out of meets like metros right out of it. Good job!
pretty sure i did congratulate everyone, thanks
If i could like comments…. i’d like this one.
h8rs gona h8. lets just High5!
At Metros, Jack Conger and Sarah Haas will be unchallenged in their events. Others will race to win their events. If I were a gambler, I’d place my bets on these individuals:
* Jonathan Ekstrom to win the 200 IM & 100 Breast (that is if Jack Conger won’t swim the IM)
* Elizabeth Pepper in the 100 Fly – she looked strong at Counties. Though Natalya Ares could win this event since she has a better streamline and possibly want to “avenge” her close loss to Elizabeth.
* John “Garrett” Powell in the 500 Free.
* Katie Rogers in the 200 Free.
* Ellen Anderson in the 500 event.
Good Counsel Girls will face strong opponents from Whitman and Churchill but will edge them to win the overall Girls.
Gonzaga and Georgetown Prep are both strong but I think that Gonzaga will win the overall Boys in the end.
I’d particularly love to see seniors Cameron Lancon, Eric Ruggieri get over their slump and do well at this meet. (I’m not an MLK parent)
Good luck to all swimmers at Metros. You’ve earned your places at this meet.
I would like to solute to those swimmers who are not only doing well in water, but also doing well for school work with good grades.
Anybody who knows Tyler knows he would have never said anything like that. A lot of swimmers can vouch for him. His character is better than his swimming.
I agree Tyler is a great captain and friend. Everyone at Gaithersburg is very proud of him and the enthusiasm he has brought toward swimming at our school.
Darn RFTW editors must have cut the part that said “Katie swam great and deserved her trophies”
GOOD COUNSEL GIRLS WILL RECLAIM THE TITLE.
WHITMAN CANNOT HANDLE THE HAASE AND MULQUIN SHOW!
Enough Already,
I’m not at all trying to take away from the high school swimming and what Reach has done. I am solely defended the integrity of the Rockville swim club. It pains me to just sit here and listen to people just keep bashing Rockville. They always make unfair accusations and i can not just sit here and let them continue with it. I say we just make a pack and instead of bashing Rockville just because you are jealous of it and instead learn to respect it.
“Darn RFTW editors must have cut the part that said “Katie swam great and deserved her trophies””
Stop making it seem like pepper did something wrong. Not once has she discredited the competition. You are simply being ignorant and associating a comment written by RFTW as a wrong doing by a nice, innocent swimmer.
Let’s all concentrate on Metros next week and stop bashing the children or their choice of summer teams. The majority of top swimmers in public or private high schools have been competing against each other in USA-Swimming meets since they were 9 or 10. They have been nice to each other even though rivalries have existed among them. Most of the negative comments on the children were answers to something a reporter wrote or a comment that a parent submitted. So let’s take a moment to think it over and to read everything that someone wrote before accusing the children of being pompous or of discrediting their rivals. As adults, we have set very bad examples by writing offensive things about others’ children. Please just concentrate of wishing all swimmers the best of luck this coming weekend and stop all of this. Remember that we are supposed to set good examples to our children so they will grow up to be respectful, unbiased adults.
Has Metros Psych Sheet posted yet?
who cares about the rockville rays!? this is high school people not summer league. If you want to have a huge debate over summer league start your own site and you can talk about it all you want. Until then, stop talking about it over high school swimming! It’s months away! GOSH…
Totally agree. This stuff can wait till summertime. I don’t want to discuss how they take kids directly from the RMSC site and let them swim on the Rays. I don’t wanna discuss how some of these swimmers pass over ten closer pools to their neighborhood on the way so they can swim for a better team. I certainly don’t want to get into the fact that the MCSL was based on the idea of swimming for your community pool. Or how having swimmers from all over the county swim on what basically amounts to a summer RMSC squad threatens the integrity of the records set by legitimate neighborhood teams.
I mean can’t we wait until summer to point out that you don’t see Curl Burke influencing their swimmers to join some super team. We should wait till June to point out that some of the best teams like RV, Tilden Woods, Bethesda, Stonegate all happen to have an RMSC site on location or one in near proximity. Or the fact that these teams employ coaches that are major RMSC coaches. We should wait till summer to have the discussion that it’s just a coincidence that these teams are good.
What we should focus on is Metros and not the fact that the league somehow is okay with all of this. Or the fact that many on the league board have affiliations with RMSC and turn a blind eye. Or the fact that the league is okay with having swimmers from the same family swim for different pools. All of this can WAIT TILL SUMMER!!!
Oh Yeah, Go Wootton!!
No More Rays,
Even after people keep pleading to tell people to stop talking about summer swimming and bashing the Rockville team, people continue to do it. Yes I would say that the teams you mentioned are extremely lucky to have the pleasure to host the gold medal ranked RMSC swim club. It is not their fault at all that RMSC is practicing there, they are just trying to make money like everyone else and would never turn down such a chance like this. I guarantee your pool would do the same exact thing, but it probable is some small pool that just is not up to par with the summer sites of RMSC.
Also, is it wrong to want to have the best coaches on your team to make the swimmers that are apart of the Rockville swim team better. Their are many other teams that have coaches that coach winter teams and also summer teams. Also, the Rockville coaches are definitely some of the best in the league as you can see from the success of the team, so do not go bashing them. A lot of the coaches are swimmers that have graduated from the team or those that coach at RMSC in the morning and cannot make it to other pools practices on time to make it, so coaching at Rockville is the most convenient for them. If you are accusing us of trying to get the best coaches around by recruiting, then we would probably try to get some of the “coach of the year” from high school, but we don’t.
So again check your facts before trying to bring down the great swimming association known as Rockville Swim Club.
Is there a metros psych sheet yet?
The Metros psych sheet is now posted on the reach homepage on the top of the left rail. Here’s the link to the .pdf – http://reachforthewall.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Metros-Psych-Sheets.pdf
To the editors of Reach for the wall:
Since it is apparent that so many people are interested in discussing the virtues and vices of the MCSL, RMSC, and the Rockville Rays, may I suggest that you create a dedicated area for those people so that they will know where tolook for information or discussion. This would also allow those of us who are looking to find info or discuss something else the opportunity to do so without having to wade through comments that have little or nothing to do with the article at hand.
Obviously this is a topic about which some people are very passionate. I’d just like for the topic not to dominate so many others. Thank you for your consideration.
Excellent idea Mark. I don’t really believe there are so many people interested in this topic – I’m guessing it’s just one or two who seem obsessed by it – but a dedicated blog would at least help me figure out whether whoever it may be really wants to affect change, or simply wants to vent. The monotonously sarcastic nature of the repeated Rockville posts makes me think it’s the latter. Annoying redundancy rarely changes minds. It just makes the poster feel clever for 30 seconds. No More Rays most recent post comes the closest I’ve seen to actually making an argument instead of simply provoking, though it can’t seem to avoid being superior and snarky. I’ve got nothing against being provocative. Just please stop being boring.
anybody got the boys diving results from last night?
Mosca from Prep in 1st
Lesser from Wotton in 2nd
Faeber from Churchill was 4th
are the complete diving results posted anywhere?
We haven’t received the full results as of yet, but here are the top four finishers on both sides…
1. Mike Mosca, Georgetown Prep
2. Jordan Lesser, Wootton
3. Kyle Butts, Paint Branch
4. Tim Faerber, Churchill
1. Annie Kastler, Walter Johnson
2. Emily Schmidt, Whitman
3. Olivia Grinker, Sidwell Friends
4. Katie Collins, Walter Johnson
GC is not gonna win.
PUBLIC SCHOOL PRIDE