The plan was to win Saturday’s girls swim sectional, but the host Warsaw Lady Tigers fell short. For the second-straight year the Culver Girls Academy won the sectional, finishing first in seven events, racking up 445 points, while Warsaw was second with 382. “They wanted it,” Warsaw coach Nathan Long said about his team. “They’ve been training for it all year. I can’t give them enough credit. At this point in the season, it comes down to them and ‘What are you going to do to win?’” “It’s always rough when your season goal is to win the sectional and you don’t,” he added. “That’s rough. Yeah, we’ve had injuries, but we could have come in and won. You have to hand it to CGA for stepping up and taking it.” CGA got off to a fast start, winning the first three events, with Warsaw in second each time. “We have some really strong girls in the front end of the events, which is really great,” CGA coach Cali Girard said. Along with winning the first three events, CGA also took three of the last four, halting any surge Warsaw would make, even though Girard wasn’t sure how much cushion her team had. “I didn’t look to be honest,” Girard said checking on the score during the meet. “I told the girls I wasn’t looking at the win, I was looking at how they were doing in the pool. Honestly, once we won the 200 free relay, I felt a lot better, because that was one that I wasn’t sure we would win. I felt pretty solid about the (200) medley relay and the 400 (free relay) definitely, because they won it last year. I played with stuff and messed with the 200 free relay, and I was like, ‘If this goes well, then we should be OK.’” Her 200 free relay of Betsy Whitfield, Sarah Jamieson, Anna Zaccaria and Lauryn Robinson won in 1:46.92, just ahead of Warsaw’s time of 1:47.88 swam by Margot Rheinhardt, Jessica Sweatland, Erin Sandberg and Meghan Boston. For Warsaw, juniors Ashley Van Wormer and Cynthia Juarez each got wins, advancing to this week’s state finals. The state finals preliminary round will be Friday at The Natatorium at IUPUI in Indianapolis, with the top 16 qualifiers moving on to Saturday’s finals. Juarez punched her ticket first, winning the 500 free in 5:31.72, an event she only began swimming on Jan. 2. “I swam it as a freshman, but I stopped swimming it my sophomore year to take a year away from it,” Juarez said about the 500 free. “Then, the coach decided to put me back into it to see how it went.” Originally swimming the 100 fly, Long moved Juarez to the 500 free after some other girls proved they could compete in the event. “The nice thing about Cynthia is, she was the fastest person (we had) in a couple of events, so it came down to, who’s going to step up and knock her out of some of those spots so I could find a faster lineup for the team,” Long said. “Margot (Rheinhardt) and Erin (Sandberg) did that in the 100 fly, so that allowed me to move her into the 500 free. She really stepped up.” Van Wormer’s time of 1:07.75 in the 100 breast advanced her to the state finals as well, a feat she also accomplished last year, finishing 29th at state in 1:09.72. “I’m a lot more comfortable with it,” Van Wormer said about her return trip to the state finals. “It's just a great feeling now.” While winners of swimming events advance to state, the top four divers at the sectional must first compete at regionals. Advancing to Tuesday’s South Bend Riley Regional out of the Warsaw Sectional are Rochester’s Quinn Bixler (428.55), Tippecanoe Valley’s Barbie Kimmel (292.70), Lewis Cass’ Kelsey Thieke (288.70) and Logansport’s Brooke Bullard (270.25).
