Wheeler Athletics

After winning the Conference title for the 11th year in a row earlier this season, the Bearcat Boy Swimmers continued to work hard and stepped up to place 8th in swimming, and having no divers, 9th overall in their highly competitive Section this Saturday behind Valparaiso, Chesterton, LaPorte, Portage, Hobart, Michigan City, and Knox, and besting, Kankakee Valley, Merrillville, Noth Judson, Boone Grove, and Calumet. In addition to the significant time drops and 16 personal bests the boys achieved during Sectional Prelims, they came back and did it again earning personal bests in all 5 of their 5 events in the Finals. While the three relay teams and Tommy Emery in two individual events were the Bearcats to swim in the Finals, it was an entire team effort with all the returning swimmers improving their individual placements year over year and the first year Bearcat swimmers each improving their current rankings by several spots. Overall Individual and Relay placements amongst 13 schools and 142 swimmers were: Medley Relay: (Ryan Stoner, Ben Gutwein, Randy Johnson, Chris Benefit) – 10th 200 yard Free: Max Claussen-20th, Ayden Johnson–22nd, Sam Mooney–25th 200 IM: Stephen Claussen–19th, Randy-24th 50 Free: Tommy Emery–3rd, Chris-28th, Titus Parrish-30th 100 Free: Tommy–4th, Chris-28th, Randy-29th 500 Free: Max-19th, Ben-21st 200 Free Relay: (Stephen, Randy/Chris, Max, Tommy) – 8th 100 Back: Stephen–24th, Ryan-25th, Ayden-28th 100 Breast: Ben-18th, Titus-22nd, Christian Bouma–27th 400 Free Relay: (Stepehen, Ayden, Max, Tommy) – 9th Greg Gillan, who also had several impressive time drops throughout the season, served as an alternate on several events. Highlights of the exciting Sectional meet were the 2-Free Relay team advancing to compete in the A Finals where Tommy Emery recorded the fastest split of all competitors of 20.77 seconds, the 4-Free Relay dropping 18 seconds from Prelims to Finals and just missing having the 7th fastest time overall, and Tommy placing 3rd and 4th in his Freestyle events scoring 31 points for the team and earning a place in the State Finals at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis next week.