Katie Lesemann knew early — almost immediately after Natalie Cronk dove in for the final leg of the 400-meter freestyle relay.
“I knew — I knew after her first couple of strokes that she could pull it off,” Lesemann said.
Down by two going into the final relay, Western needed to outswim Hidden Valley, the defending state champion, to win the Group AA/A girls swimming and diving championship. When Cronk dove in for the final leg with a lead, it was apparent Western was about do more than that — they were about to wrap up an event win, the first individual event championship in school history, and, in turn, the coveted Group AA/A team state title.
Lesemann, standing at the end of the lane, reacted as such, just seconds after coach Dan Bledsoe muttered “they’re not going to catch her” under his breath to no one in particular.
Cronk sped to the win, finishing off the win for a relay team that started with Elsa Strickland on the opening leg, followed by Emma McKinley and Seana Acker. The group missed the state record by just eight tenths of a second.
“We knew if we won the relay we were going to win the state championship,” Acker said. “So we just gave it our all.”
It was a spectacularly clutch performance and a display of the squad’s immense depth. During preliminaries, the Warriors were able to swim several reserves, including Anna Corley, and still qualify in the final heat in one of the top couple of spots. That gave Western the flexibility to put Acker in one of several key spots on the day of finals, and Western picked correctly by inserting her onto the final relay that sealed the state title.
“We also had that flexibility in the 200-free relay — Becca Marconi really stepped up to make the state cut at regionals and be a part of a relay team the first day and guarantee them the top heat,” said Western co-head coach Diana Bowen. “No other team in the state has such a strong core group of girls and has that sort of flexibility.”
Cronk, in fact, wasn’t on either 200-meter relays during preliminaries.
Western got a tremendous set of contributions in a wide variety of events. In the other relays, the Warriors took seventh in the 200-medley and third in the 200-freestyle race. Lexi Campbell, Cronk, Strickland and Lesemann combined for the third place finish.
Cronk, as expected, had a monster individual day, taking fifth in the 100-fly and second in the 200-individual medley. The junior was far from the only Central Virginia standout in the IM. Brodde Lamb of Charlottesville took third and Cronk’s classmate and teammate Seana Acker took third. Larissa Neilan of Orange, just a freshman took 15th in that event too.
Lamb managed a fourth in the 100-meter butterfly as well as a contribution on the 200-freestyle relay team for CHS that took seventh place.
Acker checked in with a sixth in the last individual event, the 100-meter breaststroke, a critical move up from her seventh-place seed time that had a seismic impact on the team standings because of its timing.
“Going into (the final relay) down just two, all we had to do was beat Hidden Valley and we’d tie for a state championship,” said Western co-head coach Dan Bledsoe.
McKinley took sixth place in the 200-free and third in the 500-freestyle, where Charlottesville’s Dania Jazouli finished 15th. Strickland won the 100-meter freestyle’s second tier heat to ear nine points, slicing 1.14 seconds off her time.
The diving finals from Thursday didn’t hurt either as Western got points out of sophomore Katie Shepherd’s fourth place finish. Kelsey Parshall of Louisa, Melissa Messier of Fluvanna and Sarah Nave of William Monroe took ninth, 12th and 13th respectively. Kelsey Schlien grabbed 14th and Charlottesville’s Molly Folger slid into the points with a 16th place performance.
Tomko caps VHSL career
Chelsea Tomko finished off her Fluvanna County High swim career with a remarkable day at the Group AA/A state swimming and diving championships Saturday in Christiansburg.
Tomko earned a spot on the podium in two individual and helped Fluvanna score points in a pair of relays.
Tomko placed second in the 50-meter freestyle sprint and eighth in the 100-breastroke. Her second place in the sprint was behind Jefferson Forest’s Susanna White, who blazed to a new state record in a meet that was dominated by fast, record-setting swims. Tomko outpaced third place by four tenths of a second.
In the breastroke, she grabbed eighth in another fast race.
Orange County makes an impact on boys side
Orange County’s boys team scrapped and clawed its way to a fifth place finish in a loaded boys meet. Unfortunately for the Hornets, it was their last in Group AA as they move to Group AAA next school year and leave behind a division they might have been favored to contend for a title in with young stars like Justin Barden and Alex Montes de Oca returning.
“We had a lot of school records set — we probably set school records in everything,” said Orange coach Jacob Roth. “Both our relays set school records.”
Like Western, Orange got a boost from the diving competition when Brandon Twigg continued to defy the odds and finished fourth in the state despite having just two meets under his belt before this weekend in the Jefferson District and Region II championships. Fluvanna’s Devon Stribling grabbed 10th in the diving portion.
On the swimming side, Montes de Oca took seventh in the 200-IM and Barden took fourth in the 100-meter butterfly. Montes de Oca managed a seventh place in the butterfly too while Western’s Brian Donovan took 10th.
Barden notched another top five finish in the 100-backstroke, taking fifth in an incredibly fast race where two swimmers went under the previous state record. Monroe’s Brian Snow took 10th in the backstroke while Western’s Donovan took 15th.
But the biggest performance for Orange was the 200-freestyle relay where Corey Kreiter Montes de Oca, Barden and Ethan Wilkinson put together a third place performance.
Charlottesville’s group of Eli Haden, Nathaniel Bullard, Bryan Hancock and Austin Nelson finished 11th in that race. Orange also got a seventh place run out of its 200-medley relay.
Monticello’s Ryan Mitchell put together a rock solid weekend with a fifth place in the 200-freestyle and a matching fifth in the 500-freestyle.
