When winter sports finally make it to January there is always the fear of winter storms canceling a game, a meet or an invitational, but when the weather changes a Championship meet it alters training schedules for swimmers that were designed months in advance to have their best swims.\u00a0 Pre Championship team dinners, shaving, taber if that is part of the swimmers training schedule is wrecked. That will be the case for the 1A-4A Small school version of the OVAC Swimming Championship as it has been moved to Monday, January 22nd.\u00a0 Saturday\u2019s 5A Big School is currently on schedule, but start time is being pushed back an hour.<\/p>\n
The 1A-4A Championship preview starts with a similar story from last year’s inaugural Small School Championship.\u00a0 Linsly, Linsly, Linsly and Linsly.\u00a0 On the women\u2019s side there is a Linsly swimmer leading all women\u2019s events but one.\u00a0 That one event is the 200 IM and the swimmer is Claire Daubenmeyer, from Saint Clairsville.\u00a0 Linsly is led by Anna Norman and is seeded first in the 50 and 100 Free. Linsly is then represented by their international members, Tuana Ozdemir seeded first in the 100 Fly and the 500 Free; Chiara Chieffo in the 200 Free and 100 Backstroke; lastly, Sarah Coha is seeded first in the 100 Breaststroke.\u00a0 There are a number of swimmers that can make some noise.\u00a0 One being JulieAnne Humpe, from Wheeling Central, in the 200 IM and 100 Backstroke. Second being Adrienne Lowe from Saint Clairsville, whom we would be talking about her being in first seed in her events except she is swimming against Tuana in each of her individual events.<\/p>\n
On the boys side there is competition from many schools, but many races come down to a swimmer from Saint Clairsville or Linsly.\u00a0 Evan Yost from Saint Clairsville is seeded first in the 200 Free and the 100 Fly.\u00a0 Zach May from Saint Clairsville is seeded first in the 50 and 100 Free.\u00a0 One new swimmer from Beaver Local could be the talk of the meet, Cole Long will be seeded first in the 200 IM and the 100 Back.\u00a0 Wrapping up the first seeds will be Cage Cable from Edison in the 100 Breaststroke and Kameron Kezele from Linsly in the 500 Free.\u00a0 The true battles of the meet will take place in the relays with Linsly and Saint Clairsville trading first and second seed in all three relays.<\/p>\n
The 5A Big School Championship storyline will be the final OVAC\u2019s for two lady swimmers that are incredible swimmers but swam in the shadow of last year’s senior crew.\u00a0 Both of these swimmers will be moving one to Division 1 swimming.\u00a0 One swimmer, Jordan Claypool from Parkersburg South, has been the PSH girls team.\u00a0 Jordan owns all swim records for PSH and is on her way to swim for Ohio University.\u00a0 Delaney Householder has been a common place on the victory blocks and this Saturday will be no exception.\u00a0 Delaney has committed to swim at West Virginia University next year.\u00a0 Jordan is seeded first in the 200 Free and the 100 Fly.\u00a0 Delaney is seeded first in the 200 IM and the 500 Free.\u00a0 There are several swimmers taking the first seed in the other events.\u00a0 Two Wheeling Park swimmers are represented with the first seed with Abby Heilman seeded first in the 100 Breaststroke and Molly George seeded first in the 100 Backstroke.\u00a0\u00a0 The 50 Free could be the race of the day with Maitlyn Miller from John Marshall being the top seed.\u00a0 Maitlyn has some strong competition from Madison Lovejoy from Marietta and Faith Farrell from Booke. The remaining first seed is Elizabeth Lane from Dover seeded first in the 100 Free.\u00a0 On the girl side of the team results could be the story of the day with Booke taking the team Championship.\u00a0 Brooke turned eyes at West Virginia Regionals last year, and they have only built on that success.<\/p>\n
From the Boys side of the 5A OVAC Championship individual events start in a big manner with Mason Francis who is seeded first in the 50 and 100 Free.\u00a0 In the splash and dash race, Mason will be body lengths in front of his competition which is amazing in a 50 Free.\u00a0 Christian Hammer from Morgantown is seeded first in the 100 Fly and 500 Free.\u00a0 Dover will have Richard Tolloti seeded first in the 200 IM and 100 Breaststroke.\u00a0 Leading a typical strong boys Parkersburg South team will be Quade Harris with 100 Backstroke.\u00a0 Looking to open some eyes will be Levi Parker from Wheeling Park that is seeded first in the 200 Free.\u00a0 Team results will most likely be Parkersburg South taking the big trophy, but Wheeling Park has a deep contingency of swimmers and could push PSH.<\/p>\n
Major storyline will be the disruption caused by Mother Nature, as the line goes, she is undefeated.\u00a0 Inside the Brooke Natatorium the news will be written by the swimmers.\u00a0 Good Luck to all participants.\u00a0 Swim hard, Swim fast.<\/p>\n
Story and Photo by Kevin Heilman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When winter sports finally make it to January there is always the fear of winter storms canceling a game, a meet or an invitational, but when the weather changes a Championship meet it alters training schedules for swimmers that were designed months in advance to have their best swims.\u00a0 Pre Championship team dinners, shaving, taber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school"],"yoast_head":"\n