NEW PALESTINE — Seeking a third straight Hoosier Heritage Conference boys swimming and diving title, Mt. Vernon gave all it had Saturday at the New Palestine Natatorium.
The Marauders won six of 12 events, but standing at the top of the podium for one-half of the competitions didn’t lead to a team celebration at the end.
Yorktown, winners of four events, and New Palestine, which accumulated multiple points in events without boasting a champion, finished ahead of the Marauders in the eight-team championship.
In the tightly-contested meet, Yorktown won with 391 points. New Palestine edged Mt. Vernon for second, outscoring its rivals 368-259.
Greenfield-Central was fourth with 254.
“It was a goal of ours,” Mt. Vernon head coach Brad Grieshop said of winning a third-straight conference title. “Hats off to Yorktown and their great performances (Saturday) and New Pal had some awesome performances, as well. It was a fast meet.
“We knew it would be fast and we would be challenged in a good way. That’s what it came down to. We swam extremely well and had six victories. I couldn’t have asked for anything more out of them.”
Mt. Vernon won a pair of relays and got two wins each from seniors Matthew Garey and Brady Gray.
Garey, Camden Cave, Gray and Adison Mayes won the meet’s opening event, the 200-yard medley relay, in 1:39.98. New Palestine’s group of Dawson Lynch, Aidan Kingery, Liam Fuller and Chase Martin placed third and set a school record with a time of 1:43.95.
New Palestine coach Chris Kingery said the relay group, along with his divers who had preliminary and semifinal dives earlier in the morning, set the tone for his team’s day.
“We had a lot of great swims. We started off with diving setting the pace. Our medley relay team started out on fire and broke the school record. We just kind of rolled from there,” coach Kingery said. “(We had) a lot of senior and upperclassmen leadership and a lot of young guys pulling their weight and making some personal bests.”
Mt. Vernon’s Garey won the 200 IM (1:59.01) and 100 breaststroke (1:00.87). Gray took the top spot in the 50 (21.42 seconds) and 100 (47.83 seconds) freestyle races. Gray set school records in both of his wins.
The Marauders added another victory in the 200 freestyle relay. Ethan Murphy, Cave, Mays and Eli Webster won in 1:32.51.
Greenfield-Central got a victory from Alex Jahrsdoerfer. He won the 1-meter diving competition with 374.35 points. New Palestine scored well in the event, accumulating 42 points by getting places four through six from Aidan Stephens (309.00, 15 points), Daxton Gibson (282.40, 14) and Cade Rodgers (279.70, 13).
Stephens and Aidan Kingery had New Palestine’s top finishes in individual events. Aidan Kingery was fourth in the 100 breaststroke. The Dragons added a third-place finish in the 200 free relay with Ian Erwin, Martin, Fuller and Dontae Thompson.
But, getting multiple swimmers, or divers, to score well in each event proved to be the key for the Dragons runner-up finish.
“A lot of guys contributed,” coach Kingery said of his team picking up points from swimmers placing anywhere from fourth to 16th.“We told them (no matter what heat you are racing in), if you’re in, you’re swimming your hardest and whatever happens happens.”
