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NORTH WEBSTER -ÊThe two best swim teams were the loudest swim teams.
At most high school sporting events, fans cheer for their teams. Swimming is different. Swimmers make up their own cheers, and the fans take their cues from the athletes.
Fifteen minutes before Saturday's Northern Lakes Conference Tournament, Northridge and Warsaw were already dueling. The Raiders screamed some unintelligible chant, only to be answered by a group of berserk Warsaw Tigers carrying out their bizarre pre-meet ritual of "hailing the monkey."
The two teams' performances matched their pre-meet shenanigans. The two schools quickly turned the tournament into a two-team meet, and Northridge came out on top of Warsaw 318.5-298. Northridge, which went 6-0 in NLC dual meets, won the conference for the second straight year.
"When I first got the heat sheet for the prelims," Warsaw coach Chris LaLonde said, "we were down 40 points. We only got beat by 20. Our guys had a very good swim meet."
The Tigers, 9-1 overall with two meets left, went 5-1 in NLC regular season meets.
Rounding out Saturday's conference meet were Wawasee (201.5), Concord (158), Goshen (134), Plymouth (99) and NorthWood (95).
Only three events in, Northridge and Warsaw distanced themselves from the pack. After the 200 individual medley finished, Northridge led with 90 points and was followed by Warsaw with 79 and Wawasee with 46.
While Northridge stayed in first place the rest of the way, the Tigers closed the gap. Warsaw gained in the diving competition with three top 12 places to Northridge's one. Northridge diver Ben Gibson placed second, but with no other entries, a fifth place by Warsaw's David Wildman, a seventh place by Dexter Anglin and an eighth place by Joel Popenfoose allowed the Tigers to trim the Raiders' lead to 128.5-124.
"We thought if we stayed with them after diving, we could get Northridge and move up," LaLonde said.
But the Raiders gained a firm grasp on first place with their performances in two of the next three events, the 100 butterfly and 500 freestyle.
The Raiders three swimmers in the top six in the 100 butterfly and 500 freestyle to up their lead to 220.5-196 after eight events. Warsaw placed one swimmer in the top six in the 100 butterfly and two in the top six in the 500 freestyle. The closest the Tigers got again was the final deficit of 20.5 points, after they completed the day by winning the 400 freestyle relay.
"Those were the only two places, really, where (Northridge) hurt us," LaLonde said. "The 500 really hurt us. They swam great in that race, but our guys did, too. We had three personal-best times in that race."
The Tigers had more first places than Northridge, 4-3.
Warsaw's 200 medley relay team of Brandon Moore, John Sincroft, Adam Helfrich and Justin Lowrance placed first with a time of 1:42.88, as did the 400 freestyle relay team of Kiel Beehler, Jason Sibray, Helfrich and Lowrance (3:23.63).
Helfrich, seeded No. 2 in the 100 butterfly, placed first with a time of 55.18 seconds. Lowrance, seeded No. 1 in the 50 freestyle, won that event with a time of 22.39 seconds.
"Adam wanted to win the 100 butterfly really bad," LaLonde said. "I told him to get his rhythm going. He did after the first 25, and he kept pulling away on the turns."
Wawasee, which finished third in the NLC in regular season duel meets with a 4-2 record, maintained its third place.
For Wawasee, Dusty Lytle scored 407.65 to win the diving competition, Guy Simmons won the 100 backstroke, and Adam Brown came up from a No. 3 seed to win the 100 breaststroke.
"Adam has been one of the area's top swimmers for a long time," Wawasee coach Roger Karns said. "That was his first NLC championship in the breaststroke. He had knee surgery after the football season and started swimming late. He didn't start practicing the breaststroke until right before Christmas break. To be able to come back and win your first conference title in the breaststroke after knee surgery is pretty incredible."
2000 NLC BOYS SWIM TOURNAMENT
Saturday at Wawasee Middle School
Scoring in individual events: 16-13-12-11-10-9 for places one through six in the championship round; 7-5-4-3-2-1 for places seven through 12 in the consolation round
Scoring in relays: 32-26-24-22-20-18 for places one through six in the championship round; 14 points for the team in the consolation round
Team scores - 1. Northridge 318.50, 2. Warsaw 298, 3. Wawasee 201.50, 4. Concord 158, 5. Goshen 134, 6. Plymouth 99, 7. NorthWood 95
Event results
200 medley relay - 1. Warsaw (Brandon Moore, John Sincroft, Adam Helfrich, Justin Lowrance) 1:42.88, 2. Wawasee 1:45.26, 3. Northridge 1:47.69, 4. Goshen 1:51.67, 5. Plymouth 1:52.05, 6. NorthWood 1:52.52, 7. Concord 2:01.75
200 freestyle - 1. Ryan Bounds (CON) 1:48.10, 2. Adam Greenawalt (NR) 1:50.79, 3. Adam Helfrich (WAR) 1:50.85, 4. Billy Van Elk (CON) 1:54.22, 5. Anthony Powell (NR) 1:57.25, 6. Brett Moore (WAR) 1:59.77, 7. Adam Miller (NR) 1:58.64, 8. Justin Johnson (GOS) 1:59.23, 9. Jared Ganshorn (WAW) 2:00.43, 10. Michael Jenks (WAR) 2:01.15, 11. Pat Miller (PLY) 2:03.61, 12. Rob Chalfant (WAW) 2:06.67
200 individual medley -Ê1. Corey Draper (NR) 2:04.22, 2. Braden Weldy (NR) 2:06.55, 3. Adam Brown (WAW) 2:07.75, 4. Andrew Whitehead (NW) 2:09.47, 5. Kiel Beehler (WAR) 2:09.57, 6. John Sincroft (WAR) 2:21.53, 7. Evan Troyer (NR) 2:14.27, 8. Kyle Bellino (CON) 2:17.54, 9. Mark Howard (WAR) 2:19.24, 10. Byran White (WAW) 2:19.71, 11. Mike Fiwek (CON) 2:21.94, (Concord's Adam Richards was disqualified)
50 freestyle - 1. Justin Lowrance (WAR) :22.39, 2. Josh Jarrard (NR) :22.61, 3. Guy Simmons (WAW) :22.61, 4. David Dauilibe (GOS) :22.90, 5. Travis Schmidt (PLY) :23.27, 6. Scott Williamson (NR) :23.50, 7. Jason Sibray (WAR) :23.58, 8. Nick Abel (NW) :23.94, 9. Nathan Kiser (NR) :24.15, 10. C.J. Cunningham (NW) :24.38, 11. Ethan Huff (PLY) :24.52, 12. Matt Parker (CON) :24.95
diving -Ê1. Dusten Lytle (WAW) 407.05, 2. Ben Gibson (NR) 398.20, 3. Regg Beer (WAW) 358.20, 4. Rich Bradshaw (CON) 354.55, 5. David Wildman (WAR) 345.40, 6. Tyler Carpenter (PLY) 293.60, 7. Dexter Anglin (WAR) 288.95, 8. Joel Popenfoose (WAR) 250.95, 9. Kyler Northrup (WAW) 231.60, 10. Dan Van Duyne (PLY) 228.25, 11. Jesus Macias (GOS) 208.10, 12. Carl Flickinger (NW) 201.20
100 butterfly - 1. Adam Helfrich (WAR) :55.18, 2. Corey Draper (NR) :56.42, 3. Danny Bigler (GOS) :58.79, 4. Adam Richards (CON) :59.62, 5. Evan Troyer (NR) :59.95, 6. Jon Ong (NR) 1:01.39, 7. Paul Gilliam (WAW) 1:02.05, 8. Brandon Moore (WAR) 1:02.10, 9. Casey Ernsburger (GOS) 1:02.34, 10. Matt Hickman (CON) 1:02.38, 11. Ethan Huff (PLY) 1:03.80, 12. Mark Howard (WAR) 1:05.70
100 freestyle - 1. Josh Jarrard (NR) :49.89, 2. Justin Lowrance (WAR) :50.10, 3. David Dauilibe (GOS) :50.92, 4. Billy Van Elk (CON) :51.63, 5. Jason Sibray (WAR) :51.81, 6. Travis Schmidt (PLY) :51.94, 7. Anthony Powell (NR) :53.12, 8. Nick Abel (NW) :53.75, 9. Brett Moore (WAR) :53.98, 10. Jared Ganshorn (WAW) :54.03, 11. Joe Judd (GOS) :54.33, 12. Stephen Troyer (NR) :54.78
500 freestyle - 1. Ryan Bounds (CON) 4:59.08, 2. Scott Williamson (NR) 5:14.34, 3. Adam Greenawalt (NR) 5:18.33, 4. Adam Miller (NR) 5:22.24, 5. Kiel Beehler (WAR) 5:22.52, 6. Josh Stork (WAR) 5:27.43, 7. Aaron Hoover (NW) 5:26.84, 8. Ben Miller (GOS) 5:27.28, 9. Michael Jenks (WAR) 5:28.46, 10. Brad Wear (WAW) 5:38.76, 11. Joe Miller (CON) 5:44.16, 12. Rob Chalfant (WAW) 5:49.16
200 freestyle relay - 1. Northridge (Cory Draper, Adam Greenawalt, Scott Williamson, Josh Jarrard) 1:31.86, 2. Wawasee 1:34.04, 3. Warsaw 1:36.22, 4. Concord 1:36.25, 5. Goshen 1:36.30, 6. Plymouth 1:38.05, 7. NorthWood 1:39.82
100 backstroke - 1. Guy Simmons (WAW) :56.81, 2. Andrew Whitehead (NW) :57.57, 3. Brandon Moore (WAR) :59.61, 4. Stephen Troyer (NR) :59.73, 5. Nathan Kiser (NR) 1:00.03, 6. Bryan White (WAW) 1:03.06, 7. Mike Thallemer (WAR) 1:00.97, 8. Josh Stork (WAR) 1:02.95, 9. Kyle Herschberger (NR) 1:02.97, 10. Rob Lappin (PLY) 1:03.84, 11. Mike Fiwek (CON) 1:04.67, 12. Joe Judd (GOS) 1:05.33
100 breaststroke - 1. Adam Brown (WAW) 1:04.22, 2. Braden Weldy (NR) 1:04.42, 3. John Sincroft (WAR) 1:05.25, 4. Danny Bigler (GOS) 1:05.65, 5. Rob Trame (WAW) 1:08.13, 6. Corey Gackenheimer (WAR) 1:12.61, 7. Kyle Bellino (CON) 1:11.55, 8. Ben Miller (GOS) 1:11.76, 9. Andy Atkins (PLY) 1:12.56, 10. Sam Hawes (PLY) 1:13.50, 11. Jon Huber (NR) 1:14.27, 12. Adam Hodge (WAR) 1:14.60
400 freestyle relay - 1. Warsaw (Kiel Beehler, Jason Sibray, Adam Helfrich, Justin Lowrance) 3:23.63, 2. Northridge 3:25.04, 3. Concord 3:28.73, 4. Goshen 3:40.26, 5. Wawasee 3:42.53, 6. NorthWood 3:51.47, 7. Plymouth 4:09.47
