With the 1A-3A, 4A Championship races completed the night before, Saturday morning\u2019s version of the split Championship turned to the 5A schools.\u00a0 The Bill Brubaker OVAC 5 A Swimming Championship on paper looked to be the battle to see who could beat Dover High School.\u00a0 The swimmers from the other schools did not let the crowd down.\u00a0 Sort of\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n
The girls side of the races started with the 200 Medley Relay.\u00a0 Dover High School with a team of Reagan Durbin, Cassy Connare, Holly Perkowski, and Annie Wright (1:55.40) was able to hang on to the victory keeping Morgantown Mohigans (1:56.39) at bay with Wheeling Park Lady Patriots finishing third (2:01).\u00a0 Dover lady swimmers winning the relay races became a theme of the day.\u00a0 In the 200 Free relay Dover flexed their swimming strength by their A relay team of Jenna Leeper, Durbin, Riley Schie, & Elizabeth Lane (1:45.61) defeating their own B relay team (1:50.10), as well as, the Brooke Lady Bruins team (1:51.05).\u00a0 The 400 Free relay final of the day had the Dover High School team of Perkowski, Wright, Schie, and Lane (3:45.78) complete the relay trifecta of the day by just out touching Morgantown (3:45.90) with Wheeling Park (4:05.08) sharing the podium with a third place finish.<\/p>\n
On the boys side of the relay races Parkersburg South Patriots came in the favorites in the 200 Medley Relay.\u00a0 They showed they were the team to beat from the start by winning by a comfortable margin (1:45.99).\u00a0 The second team to touch the wall was Morgantown Mohigans (1:49.355) followed by Wheeling Park Patriots (1:54.35).\u00a0 The 200 Free relay had a switch up with Dover High School team consisting of Thomas Perkowski, Kasey Ruegsegger, Cameron Marshall and Luca Lane (1:32.22) battling to lead Parkersburg South (1:36.33) and Wheeling Park (1:40.72).\u00a0 The final race of the day showed how strong of a team Dover High School has with Lane, Ruegsegger, Marshall, and Perkowski (3:19.49) was by once again out touching Parkersburg South (3:30.18) and Morgantown (3:35.50).<\/p>\n
The story lines for the individual races were abundant throughout the 5A OVAC Championship.\u00a0 On the ladies side there was the final OVAC chapter of two standout swimmers in Victoria Kidney from John Marshall and Caroline Riggs from Morgantown.\u00a0 Victoria is an incredibly humble athlete that has broken several pool, OVAC open and OVAC Championship records.\u00a0 She swims with a grace and efficiency that swimmers all try to achieve.\u00a0 Victoria has signed to swim at West Virginia University.\u00a0 Carolina Riggs is one of the top swimmers in the state of West Virgina.\u00a0 She started as a distance swimmer and morphed into a swimmer that excels in every stroke.\u00a0 She too owns her own records throughout the state and plans to continue her academic career at Yale University.\u00a0 To watch these two swim was worth the price of admission.\u00a0 Then\u00a0 throw in Lucas Lane from Dover High School on the boy\u2019s side who has signed to swim at Ohio State University, everyone in attendance got more than they paid for.\u00a0 Lucas is a powerful swimmer that would win any event he would select at the OVAC Championship.<\/p>\n
Kidney went on to take two golds on the day with winning the 200 IM (2:09.25) and the 100 Back (57.64) both getting the best of Delaney Householder from Morgantown.\u00a0 With the 100 Back race beating her own OVAC Championship, Open and pool record.<\/p>\n
Not to be outdone, Caroline Riggs swam to two gold medals in the 200 Free and 500 Free.\u00a0 Caroline finished with a time of 1:53.98 besting her Mohigan teammate Lillian Linscheid and Lacie Langmyer from Wheeling Park.\u00a0 In the 500 Free Caroline broke her own pool record with a 5:02.79, beating Langmyer and Olivia Noretto from Dover High School.<\/p>\n
Another dual gold winner was Jordan Claypoole, a junior from Parkersburg South.\u00a0 Jordan won the 50 Free and 100 Fly.\u00a0 Jordan\u2019s competition in the 50 Free (24.64) was Elizabeth Lane and Annie Wright both from Dover High School.\u00a0 Fighting off Dover High School in the 100 Fly, Jordan won with a time of 58.15 besting Perkowski and Leeper both from Dover.<\/p>\n
The remaining girl\u2019s individual events had Elizabeth Lane winning the 100 Free (55.26) besting Dover teammate Riley Schie and Ella McCullough from Brooke.\u00a0 The final and without a doubt the closest race of the night had Abby Heilman winning the 100 Breaststroke with a time of 1:11.59 over Connare from Dover and Abby\u2019s Lady Patriot teammate Ava Sunseri.<\/p>\n
Lucas Lane showed his incredible swimming abilities in both the 500 Free and the 100 Back, both breaking the OVAC Championship record.\u00a0 Lucas timed a 4:38.77 in the 500 Free with minimal competition coming from Levi Parker from Wheeling Park and Lake Embrey from Morgantown.\u00a0 In the 100 Back, Lucas (51:75) finished faster than Quade Harris from Parkersburg South and Carter Redelman from Morgantown.<\/p>\n
Another swimmer showing dominance in the pool Saturday was Mason Frances from Warren High School.\u00a0 Mason had a convincing win in both the 50 and 100 Free.\u00a0 To win a 50 or 100 Free race by a more than a body length shows dominance and Mason did just that.\u00a0 Breaking the OVAC Championship records in the 50 Free, Mason\u2019s 21.01 beat Thomas Perkowski of Dover and Jost Goesmann of Marietta High School.\u00a0 In the 100 Free, Mason (47.48) got the best of T. Perkowski and Cameron Marshall of Dover.<\/p>\n
Talking of Cameron Marshall from Dover, he started the day with the victory in the 200 Free.\u00a0 Marshall\u2019s 1:52.01 was 2 seconds faster than Levi Parker from Wheeling Park, who was 2 seconds faster than Lake Embrey of Morgantown.<\/p>\n
Other winners on the boy\u2019s side were Quade Harris from Parkersburg South taking the gold in the 200 IM (2:08.06) over Kasey Ruegsegger and Richard Tolloti both of Dover.\u00a0 Carter Redelman of Morgantown won the 100 Fly (54.25) over Anthony Ott of Parkersburg South and teammate Christian Hammer.\u00a0 Richard Tolloti of Dover was the victor in the 100 Breaststroke (1:03.15) besting Andrew Kirk of Parkersburg South and teammate Ryan Peters.<\/p>\n
During the medal ceremony there was two touching moments.\u00a0 The first, came when Victoria Kidney had one of her medals placed around her head by Coach Timmi Snyder who happens to be Victoria\u2019s mom.\u00a0 The second, came when Abby Heilman had her gold medal for the 100 Breaststroke placed around her head by Coach Emilee Salatino who happens to be Abby\u2019s older sister.\u00a0 Two moments of memory for both swimmers and their families.<\/p>\n
In the end the overall team battles were close on the boys side with Parkersburg South having the necessary swims to score a victory and winning the 5A OVAC Championship Trophy.\u00a0 Runnerup was Dover High School, followed by Morgantown and Wheeling Park.\u00a0 On the girls side of the day’s competition Dover High school had a convincing victory as the 5A OVAC Championship Trophy with runner up being Morgantown.\u00a0 Followed by Parkersburg South and Wheeling Park.<\/p>\n
The OVAC Championship has historically brought the best swimmers in the valley together for one day.\u00a0 West Virginia vs Ohio.\u00a0 Big School vs small school.\u00a0 By splitting the event into two days some races were diluted in talent. Small schools sometimes having issues with facilities, it can just be more difficult for them. The final heat of each swim was just as exciting as past Championships.\u00a0 Was the goal achieved?\u00a0 One positive is the large school Championship did run faster.\u00a0 The teams were home before dark.\u00a0 One negative is time comparisons between the Small School\u2019s Friday swims and the Big School\u2019s swims on Saturday, it will be hard not to compare swim times.\u00a0 In the end, the split Championship did allow more student athletes to compete.\u00a0 Inclusion was achieved.\u00a0 Congratulations to all medal & ribbon winners!\u00a0 Good luck to all area swimmers at Regionals (WV) or Sectionals (OH).<\/p>\n
Article compliments of Kevin Heilman.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the 1A-3A, 4A Championship races completed the night before, Saturday morning\u2019s version of the split Championship turned to the 5A schools.\u00a0 The Bill Brubaker OVAC 5 A Swimming Championship on paper looked to be the battle to see who could beat Dover High School.\u00a0 The swimmers from the other schools did not let the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school"],"yoast_head":"\n