Swim to Win

St. John’s Diving started the 2019 SPC meet with an eleven-dive sequence for each participant. Cai Flowers ’21 finished second to lead the girls' team and Pete Curtis ’22 finished second for the boys adding 7 points apiece.

 

“It was really good competition, said Flowers. “Eleven dives are a lot.”

 

“It is a battle of attrition and mental toughness,” said St. John’s Diving Coach Gamal Jones. 

 

The Girls’ Swimming team broke SPC records in the 200 Medley Relay with a time of 1:47.52 (Lexi Pickens ‘19, Ainsley Dodson ‘21, Ella Flowers ‘22, Georgianna Mathews ‘21), and in the 200 Free Relay with a time of 1:39.64. (Georgiana Mathews ‘21, Ainsley Dodson ’21, Katie Shelburne ‘20, Sydney Buchman ‘20). The Girls also broke eight school records on the day and all swimmers dropped their times.

 

The Boys’ Swimming team started the meet with a first-place finish and school record time of 1:36.95 in the 200 Medley Relay (Rhys Beauchamp ‘21, Will Sampson ‘20, Eric Wang ’20, Jordan Fullen ‘20), barely beating out John Cooper by .19 seconds. From then on it was like the script from the seed times. St. John’s and Cooper would be swimming for the title going into the last race of the day, the 400 freestyle relay. Unfortunately for the Mavericks, they were DQ’d and left points on the blocks that would have given them a second consecutive championship. Nevertheless, they finished with seven school records on the day and 100% of their swim results were faster than what they were seeded.

 

“The Boys’ really rose to the occasion swimming outside of their previous performances,” said Head Coach Ron Raper. “Everyone (girls and boys) were doing fantastic in their swims.  In order to make it in the top eight, you have to swim out of your mind.”

 

St. John’s finished with 255.5 points for combined girls and boys team scores. While this is not an official championship, it was a 75.5 point margin of victory for the Maverick Swimming & Diving program.  

 

Sam Chambers – Athletic News