Greenfield-Central’s Norah Johnson competes in the 100-yard breaststroke against New Palestine on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021.
INDIANAPOLIS — The Greenfield-Central girls swimming and diving team capped its season with a record-setting weekend at the IHSAA state finals inside the IU Natatorium on the campus of IUPUI.
A day after setting three new school records on Friday, the Cougars rewrote history one more time during the 200-yard medley relay consolation finals on Saturday.
Seeded 16th in the event, the Cougar 200 medley relay team swam even faster on Saturday to break the school record and move up two spots to finish 14th overall at state. The quartet of Alyssa Osborn, Norah Johnson, Mary Ellen Stratman and Rachel Stutz swam the consolation finals event in a time of 1 minute, 49.32 seconds.
“These girls and all their teammates work so hard day in and day out,” Greenfield-Central coach Emily Logan commented. “This team had some big goals this year and accomplished so much. We are grateful to our seniors, parents and all who support this program.”
Johnson broke a 24-year-old school record in the 100 breaststroke on Friday night at 1:04.51 to advance into the consolation finals on Saturday, placing 16th overall at state in a time of 1:06.07.
Johnson was 11th overall during Friday’s 100 breaststroke preliminaries, besting her sectional-winning, seed time of 1:04.86. Last year, Johnson finished 13th at the state meet in the same event with a time of 1:04.84. Her 2020-21 state preliminary time was 1:04.90.
Both Johnson and Stratman made their third straight state finals appearances for the Cougars this weekend in Indianapolis.
As freshmen in 2019-20, Johnson and Stratman competed with the Cougars’ state-qualifying 200 medley relay. Stratman qualified for state in the 200 IM that same year, turning in a time of 2:15.95. The duo were also on the Cougars’ 200 freestyle relay that placed 25th at the state meet in 2020.
Johnson finished 27th overall in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:08.13 in 2019-20.
In 2020-21, Johnson and Stratman were part of the Cougars’ state-qualifying 200 medley and 400 free relays. Stratman also swam in the 100 butterfly state preliminaries that year, and Johnson competed in the 100 free.
This season, Stratman placed 27th overall in the 100 butterfly. Osborn posted a new school record in the 200 IM with a time of 2:10.46 to place 19th at state.
The G-C 200 freestyle relay team of Reagan Crouch, Elizabeth Coleman, Ariel Niemeier and Cecelia Duffy-Johnson finished 28th at state.
The G-C 400 free relay team of Stutz, Stratman, Osborn and Norah Johnson broke another school record with a time of 3:38.22 in Friday’s preliminary race. They placed 18th overall.
