Girls Swimming and Diving: Mistake filled day sees Knights end up in 18th at states

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

                       

Simply put, it just wasn’t the Middletown High School Knights Girls Swimming and Diving team’s day.

It was a day filled with mistakes and costly errors, that although didn’t prevent Middletown from not winning a state championship (Poolesville had about won it before the meet even started) certainly didn’t help their chances of moving up the leaderboard and getting a higher finish.

The Knights would have to settle for an 18^th place finish after scraping together just 39 points over the course of the day and largely lacking any big finishes from swimmers in the top 6.

Middletown’s day started off ominously enough with a DQ. Middletown would DQ out of the 200 yard medley relay, a race in which the Knights where almost guaranteed to pick up some degree of points from.

Middletown would get on the board in the 2^nd event as Knights freshman Jamie Damm would put up a time of 2:15.27 in the 200 yard freestyle good enough for 13^th place and 4 points for the Knights.

Middletown would also score in the next event with Knights senior Maddie Martin swiping up another 13^th place finish for the Knights this time in the 200 yard individual medley coming in with a time of 2:32.75 giving the Knights another 4 points.

Middletown wouldn’t score in the 50 yard freestyle but would pick up points in the 100 yard butterfly with Middletown junior Kylie Slusher timing in with a 1:10.75 giving herself a 16^th place finish and picking up 1 point for the Knights.

Middletown would miss out on scoring in the 100 yard freestyle but it would be Martin who would pick up where she left off earlier in the meet.

This time in the 500 yard freestyle, Martin would finish with a time of 5:54.24 giving herself a 9^th place finish and picking up 9 points for the Knights.

It was a fitting tribute for Martin, who has swam the full 4 years with the Knights and has always been a hard and dedicated worker for Middletown.

Middletown would put up 2 swimmers in the top 16 in the 500 yard freestyle relay which was the only event that Middletown would do that in. Middletown junior Reagan Corcoran would finish with a time of 6:09.64 in the 500 yard freestyle giving herself a 13^th place finish, a common theme for the Knights today, and the 4 team points that came along with it for Middletown.

Middletown freshman Sophia Stafford broke onto the scene in a big way for Middletown as she scored a 11^th place finish for the Knights in the 100 yard backstroke, finishing with a time of 1:08.50, and the 6 points that came along with the finish for Middletown.

Corcoran would pick up her second placement of the day when she came across the line with a time of 1:15.59 in the 100 yard breaststroke good enough for 9^th place and the final 9 team points Middletown would receive on the day.

It appeared Middletown had the definite possibility to pick up points in the 400 yard freestyle relay and end their day on a high note but there would be no cherry on top for the Knights as the DQ bug struck again for the second time in the meet, both of them on higher points coming from relays.

That would end the Knights day in the most unglamorous of ways as Middletown couldn’t come up with any points and would end the meet looking back at mistakes and realizing what could have been.