For the third consecutive year, the girls swimming and diving team placed among the top 15 teams at the State Swimming and Diving Championships. This year, the girls finished 12th overall in the competition that was held Feb. 15 and 16 at the St. Peter’s Rec Plex.
In the diving portion of the meet, the team was quick to score points. Led by senior Katie McKinstry and freshman Jamie Goldberg, the Colts accumulated 20 points to carry into the finals session of swimming. McKinstry finished 12th while Goldberg ended up coming in fourth. Goldberg’s final score of 403.65 broke McKinstry’s school record from 2012.
After the preliminary round of diving, Goldberg was seeded first heading into the semifinals. Although she did not end up finishing in the top spot, she was more than content with her performance.
“I was not expecting to dive as well as I did,” Goldberg said. “Going into the meet, I knew that there were a lot of really good competitors and I didn’t really know what to expect. My goal was to place in the top 16, so placing fourth felt great.”
Following the diving session, the swimmers kept the momentum rolling. In the first event of the meet, the 200-yard medley relay, the quartet of junior Elaine Reichert, senior Ally Neumann, and juniors Kelilah Liu and Courtney Nall placed fifth. With a time of 1:51.32, the relay broke the previous school record that was set in 2004 by four other girls, including Neumann’s older sister.
Reichert, who swam the backstroke leg of the race, said she knew it was not going to be an easy feat.
“Our medley relay started shooting for the record my freshman year when we realized at state that we were only a second or so away,” Reichert said. “It was really hard to drop time, though, since each leg was only a 50.”
Nonetheless, the relay was able to break the record by nearly half a second.
“It would all come down to Courtney’s finish. Ally, Kelilah and I were all watching the clock as Courtney swam her 50,” Reichert said. “I remember Ally screaming, ‘We got it!’ and Courtney jumped out of the pool, and we all started screaming and hugging.”
Aside from the record-breaking relay, the swim team had other significant swims at the meet. Nall, one of the team’s leading sprinters, placed 9th in the 50-yard freestyle. She also helped guide the team to a 16th place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Nall was joined by Neumann, sophomore Taylor Burlis and junior Allison Bain in the event.
Following what Neumann considered a disappointing swim in the 200-yard individual medley when she failed to qualify for finals, the team captain redeemed herself when she placed second in the 100-yard breaststroke, the Colts’ highest finish of the meet.
Neumann, who sat out for two weeks during the regular season due to a cyst she had underneath her eye, was impressed with the swim, given how much training she had to miss prior to the meet.
“I was super excited and when I looked back down toward the wall,” Neumann said. “I saw one of my best friends, Corey (Conroy), crying and congratulating me, so it really hit me when I saw her. I couldn’t believe it.”
The meet marked the end of Neumann’s high school swimming career before she swims for Truman State next year.
“It is bittersweet that it was my last state meet, but I’m glad I ended it the way I did with my 100 breast,” Neumann said.
