Five HHS Swimmers Advance to State Competition

Five Herndon High School swimmers are advancing to state competition, after regionals were held this weekend.

Those swimmers include Conor Cudahy in the boys 500 free-style, Ryan Murphy in the girls 100 backstroke, Jenna Van Camp in the girls 100 breaststroke, and Murphy, Van Camp, Robin Brazier and Molly Cudahy in the girls 200 medley relay.

Two years after Westfield opened its doors in 2000, the Concorde District began a run of producing eight straight boys swim and dive district champions. The first six came from Robinson, and Oakton won the past two. On Saturday, the Bulldogs finally broke into the mix with their first ever title.

They were an overwhelming favorite coming into the finals, and the real battle was for second place. With 271 points, Westfield’s 83 point margin of victory over second place Woodson was greater than the difference between Woodson and tenth place finisher Chantilly. All three relays will head to the state meet next week in Virginia Beach, and five boys qualified for a combined nine individual events on top of that.

“We’ve got the right bunch of boys. They’ve got good chemistry, they worked hard, they came in as freshmen with pretty lofty goals and they kind of brought the rest of the team with them,” Westfield coach Bruce Andersen said. “It’s been a work in progress, but I’m super proud of them.”

Kurtis Ratcliff, CJ Fiala and Brandon Fiala put that chemistry on display as they won both the relays they swam together in; first the 200 medley, with Richard Xue, in an all-American consideration time of 1:35.82, and then the 400 freestyle, with Charlie Keith, also good for AAC with a time of 3:10.04.

Langley’s girls took home their first title since winning four straight from 1998-2001. Jayme Katis and Abi Speers led the way for the Saxons, each taking a first and second place. They finished one-two in the 100 free, with Speers winning with a time of 51.99 and Katis also qualified for states in the 200 free while Speers will go for the 50 free. All three relays qualified for states, and the 200 freestyle relay team of Katis, Speers, Meghan Overend and Megan Howard had an automatic all-American time of 1:36.97.

Yorktown’s girls, who have long dominated the National District but have settled for runner-up several times at regionals since their last win in 1984, shocked even their coach with their finish this year.

“Before [preliminaries] last night, we had no idea we’d be in the running for second place,” coach Dave Lassiter said. “Coming out of the National District, we had so many swimmers. It’s not that we had great swims, although we did drop time, but we had sheer numbers.”

Despite the Saxon boys’ eight place finish, Jayme’s brother Chuck Katis set two regional records. The first came when he swam the 200 IM in 1:50.24, more than three and a half seconds faster than his prelims time and just over half a second quicker than Sean Fletcher’s previous record of 1:50.75 set in 2009. His most impressive showing was in the 100 breaststroke, where his time of 55.61 obliterated KJ Park’s 56.88, also set in 2009.

Saxon’s coach Ryan Jackson praised the contribution the Katises have made as their high school careers come to a close.

“It’s been a blessing, it’s been so nice having them. They’re both great kids, they’re really an inspiration for the other kids on the team,” he said. “They’re not just fast swimmers, but they’re really good people.”

He went on to declare that Chuck would be winning the 200 IM and 100 breaststroke at states, and that a former Olympic gold medalist’s record could be in danger.

“He’s going after [2000 Olympic gold and silver medalist and Lake Braddock alum] Ed Moses’s record [of 1:03.35],” Jackson said. “It’s short course meters, so things are a little different, but he was a little over half a second off of it last year, so he’s looking for that this year.”

Oakton’s Janet Hu, a freshman who already holds every NVSL backstroke, butterfly and IM record up until the 15-18 age group that she enters this summer, as well as two freestyle records, added two regional records to her resume this weekend. Although she was unable to improve on her record setting 50 free time of 23.41 from Friday, she raised the bar even higher for the 100 back. Her prelims time of 55.68 already set a new mark, but she dropped it to 55.60 on Saturday, and it seems to be only a matter of time before her name is etched elsewhere in the record books.

While only once has a team failed to repeat as regional champions on each the boys and girls side in the past 15 years, both winning coaches tonight seemed skeptical of their chances in 2012.

“We’re graduating a lot of seniors, we’ve got a lot of talent in this year’s senior class. It’s definitely going to be difficult,” Jackson said.

Andersen felt the same.

“We’ll see, things change.”

Boys top 12 team results
1. Westfield – 271
2. Woodson – 188
3. Robinson – 186
4. Madison – 179
5. Lake Braddock – 163
6. Fairfax – 145
7. West Springfield – 137
8. Langley – 135
9. Oakton – 128
10. Chantilly – 127
11-t. Marshall – 87
11-t. Jefferson – 87

Girls top 12 team results
1. Langley – 241
2. Yorktown – 218
3. Lake Braddock – 167
4. West Potomac – 152
5. Westfield – 149
6. South County – 145
7. Robinson – 143
8. Chantilly – 138
9. Oakton – 130
10. Madison – 119
11. McLean – 116
12. Woodson – 102