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MIDDLEBURY - The Wawasee Warrior swim team is on a quest to win the Northern Lakes Conference title this season, but head coach Roger Karns knows two teams in particular - Northridge and Warsaw - stand in the way.
On Tuesday, the Warriors pushed Northridge aside and crossed the Raiders off the list. One big meet down, one to go.
The Warrior boys, ranked No. 10 in this week's Associated Press poll, beat Northridge 98-88. They are 5-0 overall and 3-0 in the NLC. Northridge fell to 2-1 in the NLC.
"They came in ready to go," Karns said. "When you tell them you have Northridge on Tuesday night, whether it's the girls or the guys, you don't have to say a whole lot to get them fired up.
"This is one of the bigger ones."
The Raiders were no patsys. They slugged it out with the Warriors down to the end, leading 79-77 with the 100-yard breaststroke and 400 freestyle relay remaining.
The screaming and the clapping grew louder. Karns' arms chopped the air furiously as he imitated swimming motions while walking alongside the pool, doing everything he could to push his swimmers harder. The "HUP!" - the word he yells at meets to kick his swimmers in the pants - boomed from his voice.
The Warriors are ranked for a reason, and they are undefeated for a reason. They placed first and third in each of the last two events to come from behind and win by 10.
Ryan Moore won the 100 breaststroke, while teammate Brock Manning placed third. Moore, Ryan Harper, Marcelo Azenha and Adam Brown swam to the first place in the 400 freestyle relay. Dan Cone, Brad Hursh, Jon Glon and Dave Close took third in the relay.
"You're not going to win a meet like this with just one or two outstanding swims," Karns said.
The Warriors didn't have one or two outstanding swims. They had many more. They placed first in seven of the 12 events.
Azenha, a foreign exchange student, continues to impress. He won the 200 freestyle and the 100 butterfly and was a member of two first-place relay (200 medley, 400 freestyle) teams. His time of 53.95 seconds in the butterfly was four seconds better than the second-place time.
"Marcelo's butterfly was outstanding," Karns said. "I know it sounds like a coach's cliche to say it was a team effort, but it really was."
Like Azenha, Moore also shined. He won the 50 freestyle and the 100 backstroke and was a member of the same two first-place relay teams.
Then the Warriors had Harper, who turned in arguably the most dominating performance. He shredded the competition in the 100 backstroke, finishing more than seven seconds ahead of the second-place swimmer. He won with a time of 57.04 seconds. Northridge's Steve Troyer was second with a time of 1:04.93.
Harper was also on both winning relay teams.
"This has been a real good meet," Karns said. "I think it's been decided by 10 points or less four years in a row.
"We we were aggressive all the way through the meet. I like that...I like that."
The Warriors are at Goshen on Saturday. Then they host Warsaw on Tuesday.
"On the guys' side, that's (Warsaw) going to be the other half of it," Karns said. "We have to get by them. They beat us the last two years, and they have most of their stars back. That's going to be a tough one."
Since both boys and girls competed at Northridge last night, the meet started at 4:45 p.m. It didn't end until after 8 p.m.
The meet was over, the win in the books. Karns was still wired.
"Well, it will be a while before I can go to sleep," he said. "It's pretty exciting. Now we start working on Goshen for Saturday and Warsaw for Tuesday."
BOYS: WAWASEE 98, NORTHRIDGE 88
200 medley relay - 1. Wawasee (Ryan Harper, Adam Brown, Marcelo Azenha, Ryan Moore) 1:42.25, 2. Northridge, 3. Wawasee
200 freestyle - 1. Azenha (W) 1:50.30, 2. Brad Schrock (N), 3. Matt Liechty (N)
200 medley - 1. Chris McNair (N) 2:00.39, 2. Harper (W), 3. Andrew Thornburg (W)
50 freestyle - 1. Moore (W) :23.01, 2. Zach Smith (N), 3. Brown (W)
diving - 1. Brent Schrader (N) 216.35, 2. David Gunn (N), 3. Ben Gibson (N)
100 butterfly - 1. Azenha (W) :52.95, 2. McNair (N), 3. Mike Ritchie (N)
100 freestyle - 1. Smith (N) :51.31, 2. Schrock (N), 3. Brown (W)
500 freestyle - 1. Liechty (N) 5:22.15, 2. Thornburg (W), 3. Dan Cone (W)
200 freestyle relay - 1. Northridge (Ritchie, Schrock, Liechty, McNair) 1:35.01, 2. Wawasee, 3. Northridge
100 backstroke - 1. Harper (W) :57.04, 2. Steve Troyer (N), 3. Cory Draper (N)
100 breaststroke - 1. Moore (W) 1:03.73, 2. Ritchie (N), 3. Brock Manning (W)
400 freestyle relay - 1. Wawasee (Harper, Moore, Azenha, Brown) 3:21.39, 2. Northridge, 3. Wawasee
