The boys of the Baylor School were on fire on day one of the Tennessee High School state championships. They broke three state records and added a national high school record in the 200 medley relay in a dominating opening day performance.
Sam McHugh and Luke Kaliszak each swam legs on the national record medley and broke state records of their own in individual races. Meanwhile on the girls’ side, Christ Presbyterian’s Tatum Wade and Pope John Paul II High’s Annie Kyriakidis each broke individual state records.
The meet is run in a prelims/finals format with prelims in the morning and finals at night. The first 12 events were swum Friday, and the remaining events will take place Saturday.
Live results are available here.
Girls’ Meet
Science Hill High School opened up Friday finals with a state championship, coming from behind to nip the Baylor School. Science Hill anchor Heather Kudialis split 23.4 on the end to take her squad from second to first in 1:46.14. She was joined by Tessa Wilson, Katie Lance, and Jessica Green. Baylor came in second in 1:46.56, that was thanks to a gigantic breaststroke split from senior Bree Roman; she went 28.13 to outsplit the field by a huge margin.
State records fell in the first two individual races on the girls’ side. First Christ Presbyterian sophomore Tatum Wade went 1:47.52 to break the 10-year-old state record of 1:47.93. That win for Wade came over Farragut freshman Erica Laning, who was 1:49.15 for second.
Then Annie Kyriakidis, a freshman from Pope John Paul II, went 2:00.08, crushing six seconds off her prelims swim and leapfrogging top seed Sophie Pilkington to win the event. The previous record was 2:00.90. Pilkington ended up second in 2:01.42.
Roman came off her outstanding medley relay split to win the 50 free for Baylor, going 23.45. The win came at the very slightest of margins – second place Logan Graumann was just .01 back at 23.46 for Maryville.
Marissa Roth, a senior from Signal Mountain, won the 1-meter diving event by well over 50 points. She scored 437.80 to end her senior season with a state championship.
Finally, Mt. Juliet got its own state championship from junior Carrie Johnson. Johnson, who entered the meet with the top seed by three seconds, held on to the #1 spot by going 54.78, well ahead of the rest of the field. East Hamilton’s Rachel Dover took second in 55.79.
Boys’ Meet
The boys’ meet started off with a huge bang, as the Baylor School won the 200 medley relay with the fastest time in high school history. The team of Luke Kaliszak, Dustin Tynes, Sam McHugh and Christian Selby went 1:27.74, three tenths of a second faster than the relay from the Bolles School in Florida did two years ago. That time will now stand as the new national high school record as well as the national independent high school record.
The 200 free went to Walker Higgins of Smhea. He went 1:38.89 to touch out Bearden’s Hayden Burns.
Future Tennessee Volunteer Sam McHugh came off that record-setting relay performance to take down the state record in the 200 IM. The senior went 1:46.29 to charge away from the field – he was out in 22.8 on the butterfly to open up a big margin early. Second place was Science Hill’s Daniel Chang.
Then Baylor claimed it’s third state title of the night in the 50 free, with relay leadoff-man Luke Kaliszak winning in 20.43. That was over a half-second faster than runner-up John Myhre of Webb, and also shattered the old state record of 20.51.
The final race of the night went to Matthew Beach of Centennial. He went 48.82 to win the 100 fly, cutting a full second off his prelims swim to take home the gold medal. Second place was senior Ryan Burcham of Bearden High.
