ST. PETERS, Mo. — Carthage didn’t exactly have the ending it wanted, but that didn’t detract from the successful trip to the MSHSAA Swimming & Diving Championships.
The Tigers set a new school record and finished in the top 16 – earning honorable mention all-state honors – in three events on Friday during the Class 2 finals at the Rec-Plex in St. Peters.
The state championships were changed this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the usual two-day event was changed to a one-day format. In addition, the number of state qualifiers were trimmed from 32 to 24, which turned into three heats that were timed finals.
Carthage did well with its limited number of qualifiers as both individual events had one all-stater and the 200-yard freestyle relay made the cut for the top 16 and set a new school record too.
The only blemish was the 400-yard freestyle relay where the Tigers were disqualified.
“We had a great meet and you don’t want the meet to end like that,” Carthage coach Braden McBride said. “The girls really competed today. The good thing is of the six (here) we only have one senior in Nadya Housh. We will miss her a whole lot but we got a young group that will come back and rebound hopefully. I’m proud of how they competed and performed. We haven’t had a lot quality practice time the last two weeks.”
Idle since the Southwest Missouri Championships on Feb. 6, practice time had been limited by inclement weather.
Carthage didn’t have its first competition until a little after 5 p.m. – about 1 ½ after the start of the meet. First up was sophomore Madison Riley, who earned honorable mention all-state status for the second year in a row in the 100-yard butterfly.
Riley was seeded 15th heading into the meet and finished one spot higher with a time of 1:00.40. Last year she took 16th but bettered her time by a second this year.
The next two events were back-to-back, which made for a short turnaround for Riley and freshman Aubree Santillan.
The two swam on the 200-yard freestyle relay and then got back in the pool for the 100-yard backstroke, the next event.
In the relay, the duo was joined by juniors Cassidy Smith and Hope Fultz and set a little bit of school history with a 16th-place finish in 1:43.70. In the process they became the first relay team in the girls program’s history to earn all-state status.
The relay team was in the third heat – usually made up of the slowest eight teams – with a seed time of 1:44.66. Carthage finished better than Kickapoo, Columbia Hickman and Columbia Rock Bridge, all teams in the second heat.
“It definitely feels good,” said Fultz, who swam the final leg in 26.51 seconds. “I definitely felt like being the underdog the people didn’t expect to come up. We definitely showed up.”
Riley and Smith swam identical 25.98 splits, while Santillan had the fastest laps at 25.23.
Carthage finished a hair behind Staley and Lee’s Summit, which tied for 14th at 1:43.69 — a tenth of a second faster.
“We had two teams just right ahead of us and all four girls are coming back,” McBride said. “It is very exciting.”
This was also the first relay team in for the program to earn an automatic spot at the state meet, instead of going to state with a consideration time.
Santillan and Riley swam in the same heat – No. 3 – in the 100-yard backstroke. Santillan finished in 1:02.37 to take 16th, while Riley finished in 1:06.79 to finish 23rd. Both finished higher than their respective seed times of 20th and 24th.
Santillan, the little sister of Payton Williams, a record holder on the boys side, beat three girls that had seed times in the 1:02s.
“I was standing back there thinking to myself I wanted to do my best and I set my goal to get in the top 16 and it happened,” Santillan said. “I was really happy that I did that.”
She noted she had a case of tired legs during the competition but pushed through with a final lap of 31.52 seconds – faster on the final 50 than four girls that finished ahead of her in the standings.
The final race was the 400-yard freestyle relay, which featured Riley, Fultz, Smith and Housh. The Tigers swam in the third heat but were disqualified after the conclusion of the heat.
Carthage finished 26th in the team standings with six points.
1 thought on “STATE SWIMMING: Carthage girls earn all-state honors”
Why were they disqualified?