Maconaquah Schools

The boys had some great times at the Carmel Sectional this past weekend. Sectional is always a bitter sweet way to end season. The boys have worked so hard all season. They have improved way more than I thought they would. At sectional, we try to go our fastest and qualify for the finals on Saturday(top 16 places). This is difficult when Carmel, Noblesville, and Westfield take up 9 places. I am happy and proud of where the boys qualified and finished. Relay times were some of the fastest I have had since 2012. Our medley relay qualified 9th on Thursday, but due to sickness, we had to scratch it for Saturday. For Qualifying on Thursday, the boys had 11 Best Times. Drake Samuel in 100 Butterfly, Colton Beebe, in his first meet of the season due to a fracture in his back, had 2 bests in 50 Breast and 50 Free, Zach Duke in 100 Freestyle, Ethan Lee in 50 and 100 Free and 50 Free leg of 200 Free Relay, Joel Loshnowsky was 4/4 bests in 100 Free, 100 Back, and both free relays. Here is where the boys finished on Saturday finals. Drake Samuel: 12th 200 Free, 16th 100 Butterfly Kaden Hanson: 6th in Diving--This was his first time doing 11 dives. He only started diving after out Conference meet. Christian Collins: 10th in Diving--He has improved so much this season. Colton Beebe: 16th in 100 Breaststroke Zach Duke: 12th in 50 Free and 13th in 100 Free Ethan Lee: 16th in 50 Free with a best time Joel Loshnowsky: 15th in 100 Free, 14th in 100 Backstroke. Joel had two more best times in the free relays. Aiden Ousley: 12th in 200 IM, 11th in 100 Backstroke 200 Free Relay finished 5th: Ethan, Joel(Best Time), Aiden, Zach 400 Free Relay finished 6th: Drake(Best Time), Joel(Best Time), Zach, Aiden(tied best time) The Golden Goggle Awards will go to Joel Loshnowsky 6 out of 8 Best Times and Kaden Hanson for his amazing diving. We finish the season with a dual meet record of 7-2, 2nd in TRC, and 8th in Sectional. This is not where the boys and I wanted to be, but they did the best they could do with the number of guys we had on the team. We all are looking forward to next season when we get several incoming freshman. We lose Seniors Kaden Hanson and Drake Samuel to graduation. The boys talked Kaden into joining the team right after Christmas break. He swam some in middle school so he had an idea of what to do. He got his practices in and was able to swim at TRC and did a great job. He asked if he could dive and started January 19th and had about 5 weeks of practice. I am amazed at how much he learned and how well he dove. Drake started swimming his freshman year. He didn't know much and was very rough, but he worked. He had the inner drive and desire to get better. In his first meet, he swam the 50 Free in 33.46 sec and the 500 Free in 9:08.05. Every week he was dropping time. By the end of his freshman year he went 27.94 in the 50 and 6:42.11 in the 500. Drake has grown so much a swimmer and as a young man. He became pretty good at butterfly last season and did it in several meets this year. He dropped 4.5 sec in 50 Fly and 5.4 in 100 Fly from last season. He improved .8 in 50 Free and 1.5 sec in 100 Free. He dropped 3.5 in 200 Free breaking the 2 minute mark and swam the 100 Breaststroke in a dual meet for the first time. Drake ends his high school swim career as a 2-Time Conference champion and made the top 6 at TRC in his events the last three years.