Thursday, March 24 was a big day for girls sports history in Marion County as Hillsboro High School female athletes competed in their first ever swim team meet. The girls combined forces with Centre and Marion-Florence to make one big team to be reckoned with coached by Marion’s Head Coach Randy Carlson.
The team’s first meet was at home and it went well with the team coming in 2nd out of seven teams with many of those teams being larger schools. The scores were as follows:
1 Bishop Carroll Catholic High -445
2 Marion High School -398
3 Andover Central High School -259
4 Circle HS -257
5 Holcomb High School -243
6 El Dorado High School -188
7 Buhler High School 86
“I would have to say our small town girls really shocked the state. We were so close to beating the 3-time defending state champs in Bishop Carroll. It was a great meet and I couldn’t be more proud of how hard the girls work and how well they have bought into the program! This is just the start to a season that I see being full of success,” said Carlson.
Some of the top scores were:
Girls 200 IM – Macy Priest came in at 6th and Emily Paulus finished at 8th.
50 Free – Caitlin Thornhill took 3rd, Ainsely Duell came in at 7th and Sophia Dye finished at 9th.
100 Fly- Thornhill finished at 4th with a time of 1:18:59 and Katie Rempel took 8th with a time of 1:36:40.
Girls 100 Free – Paulus took 7th and Plett took 11th.
Girls 200 Free Relay – Dye, Plett, Rempel, Duell secured 3rd.
Girls 100 Back- Gayle at 4th, Plett at 8th and Hannah May at 10th.
400 Free Relay – Gayle, Leah Brunner, Priest, Thornhill came in 2nd.
Some of the team also competed at Wichita NW on Saturday and also did well.
“We had our first diving event in Wichita. Our two first-year divers did great. Emily Hake executed her dives really well and with Olivia Carlson of Centre bringing home a 5th place medal on Friday,” said Carlson.
Coming—The team competes next at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12 in Newton. Check out next week’s Free Press for our Spring Sports Preview to learn more about the team and see their whole schedule and roster.
