Amid a headline-grabbing national high school record, the boys of the Peddie School and the girls of the Episcopal Academy won the 2017 Easterns meet. It’s the third straight win for Peddie, while the Episcopal girls avenge a 4-point loss from a year ago.
Boys Meet
The national record in question came in the 100 breaststroke, where Penn Charter junior Reece Whitley went 51.84 to smash the fastest high school time in history. We covered that swim in more detail here.
Whitley also won the 200 IM in 1:44.91, crushing the meet record and finishing just a hundredth off the national prep school record.
Despite a 23.90 breaststroke split from Whitley on the medley, the Peddie boys managed to win the overall event at 1:30.53. Michael Blank had a field-best 22.77 on back, Joe Black was 25.44 on breast, Noah Houskeeper a field-best 21.93 on fly and Nathan Stern a meet-leading 20.39 on the freestyle split.
That keyed a sweep of the relays for Peddie. Stern, Blank, Trey Ike and Black went 1:21.99 to win the 200 free relay and break a meet record, getting a 20.31 from Black and a 20.75 leadoff from Stern. Then Stern, Blank, Black and Houskeeper reunited to win the 400 free relay, going 3:01.47. Stern led off in 44.74 to lead that win.
The Hill School’s Albert Mestre and Haverford’s Alex Boratto each won two individuals. Mestre, a senior, topped the 50 free in a meet record 20.00, then came back to win the 100 free in 44.57. Boratto, who is a junior, won a tight 200 free battle in 1:39.40, then came back to top the 100 back in 48.86, a new meet record.
Other event winners:
- Peddie’s Samuel Bray won the 100 fly in 49.80. (SwimSwam fan easter egg: check out who holds the meet record from way back in 1987!)
- Georgetown Prep senior Matthew Hirschberger took the 500 free in 4:24.48, winning by five seconds.
- Christian DeVol of Hill won diving with 560.55 points.
Top 5 Teams:
- Peddie – 554
- Phillips – 504
- Haverford – 440.5
- Suffield – 389
- Malvern – 388
Girls Meet
The girls of the Episcopal Academy won 6 of 12 events to avenge last year’s runner-up finish by 4 points to Mercersburg. Senior Emma Seiberlich and junior Alex Sumner each won three events apiece.
Seiberlich took home the 100 fly in 54.65 to end night one, coming within half a second of the meet record. She then picked right up where she left off on day 2, winning the 100 free in 50.66. Sumner, meanwhile, topped the 200 IM in 2:01.40 (in a 1-2 finish with freshman teammate Hadley DeBruyn) and the 100 back (53.41) setting a meet record in the latter.
Sumner led off the 200 medley relay in 25.41 and Seiberlich was 24.75 on the fly leg to lead Episcopal to the win. Sally Stockett and Isabel Handal also contributed to that 1:45.37 win.
DeBruyn would also win the 500 free in 4:50.81 for Episcopal.
Suffield swept the freestyle relays with the quartet of Devina Bhalla, Eva Crouse, Shaun Johnson and Sydney Winters. In the 200 free relay, Winters anchored in 23.13 to lead a 1:35.28 win. And in the 400 free relay, Winters again put up the fastest split of the field with a 50.27 to cap a 3:26.08 win.
Extra impressive for Crouse and Winters was that they swam the 100 breast one event prior to the relay. Crouse went 1:02.95 to win the title and Winters was second in 1:03.03.
Other event winners:
- Mercersburg took second as a team, led by Lindsay Tanner‘s 1:51.31 win in the 200 free, a narrow touchout of Germantown freshman Emma Atkinson (1:51.42).
- Peddie sophomore Anjuii Barrett won the 50 free in 24.00.
- Diving went to US Performance Academy’s Hannah Craley with 495.25 points.
Top 5 Teams:
- Episcopal – 542.5
- Mercersburg – 527
- Germantown – 477
- Suffield – 426
- Phillips – 370
