SYRACUSE - Behind Brian Thallemer's win in the 100-meter backstroke, Warsaw Community High School's boys swim team garnered a third-place finish in Saturday's Northern Lakes Conference boys swim finals at Wawasee Middle School.
The WCHS junior won the backstroke event in 54.21 seconds. It was the only first-place finish for the Tigers, who tallied 199 points as a team.Wawasee senior Tyler Wear finished second to Thallemer in the backstroke, finishing with a time of 55.01 seconds.
As a team, the Warriors finished fourth in the standings with 143 points.
Northridge won eight of 12 events to score 365 points, giving the Raiders their 10th consecutive NLC Meet victory.
Prior to Northridge's impressive run, Warsaw won the NLC Meet in the 1997-98 school year.
Concord finished second in the team standings with 246 points, followed by Warsaw, Wawasee, Goshen (130), Plymouth (97), Elkhart Memorial (94) and NorthWood (61).
Individual winners for Northridge included Travis Hembree (200 free), Trace Hanson (200 IM), Michael Grubaugh (500 free), Todd Wenger (breast stroke) and Mark Rushlow (butterfly).
Conference champions other than Thallemer and competitors from Northridge included Concord's Alex Burtch (50 freestyle), Korey Schrock (diving) and Mike Richline (100 freestyle).
Schrock's win in the 1-meter diving competition was an NLC, Concord High School and Wawasee Middle School pool record, as the talented senior tallied 466.65 points.
His point total broke the previous record of 450 points, set by Wawasee's Dave Keener in 1989.
Warsaw had one other runner-up finish Saturday, as the team of Daniel Lowrance, Daniel Richcreek, Ben Rankin and Max Revere turned in a time of 1:31.44 in the 200 freestyle relay.
All of Saturday's finals event winners were named All-Northern Lakes Conference, while Chap Miller of Northridge, Lowrance and Wear were named at-large selections.
Revere and Rankin were on the honorable mention list for the Tigers, as was Wawasee's Jake Garner.
Northridge's Joe Keller was named the NLC Coach of the Year.
