Tigers Take Second At Swim Sectional

NORTH WEBSTER - All year long the divers on Warsaw's boys swim team have come through when their team needed them.

Saturday at the Wawasee Sectional swim finals, they almost did it again.

After Thursday's consolation round of the sectionals, Bremen led the second-place Tigers in team points by 54. Going into the last event Saturday, the 400 freestyle relay, the Lions led Warsaw by just two points.

"The kids did wonderful," said Warsaw coach Chris LaLonde. "We thought we'd be down more than two points going into the 400 free. We were down 54 going into Saturday and if the divers got 30 we'd still be down 24. We knew they (Bremen) would win the 400 free so we thought we'd have to be up by six."

Instead they were down by two and Bremen's time of 3:17.20, 13 seconds ahead of the rest of the field, was good enough to give them 32 points in the event and 284 overall to lay claim to the sectional championship. Warsaw finished third in the final event with a time of 3:30.69 and came in second place with 274 total points. Among other local teams, Wawasee finished third, Manchester fourth and Tippecanoe Valley came in eighth out of the nine teams with 64 points.

Warsaw will send seven members of its team to the state finals to be held at IUPUI's Natatorium Friday and Saturday. Warsaw's 200 medley relay team of Brandon Moore, Adam Helfrich, John Sincroft and Justin Lowrance won sectional with a time of 1:43.24. Divers Kevin Cowan and Sam Hood finished second and third respectively in the sectionals and will compete in the diving regionals Tuesday at Oak Hill. Lowrance will also compete at the state finals in the 50 freestyle with his time of :22.37.

Manchester diver Reed Christiansen won the sectional round with a score of 434.65 and will compete at Oak Hill Tuesday. Teammate Rod Smith will compete in the state finals with his winning time of 2:02.44 in the 200 individual medley and his first-place time of :54.42 in the 100 backstroke. Overall the Squires set four new school records and 49 personal records at sectionals. Previously Manchester had never had three sectional champions in the same year.

Wawasee's Adam Brown will took first-place honors in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:01.57 to earn a trip to the state finals.