Carmel High School hosted the 2024 Holiday Invitational at its new pool on Friday, December 27. The Greyhounds swept the meet, with the girls and boys—both defending Indiana High School state champions—winning. The girls team is seeking its 39th straight title this season and beat Upper Arlington, Carroll Fort Wayne, Zionsville, and Homestead in the team’s second competition of the season. The boys beat the same schools and the boys’ only school, St. Charles Preparatory.
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In addition to the high school meet, Aaron Shackell recently returned to the club after spending the first term at the University of Texas, time trialed the 200 freestyle. He swam 1:34.84, which is his fastest time of the season.
Girls’ Recap
The Greyhound girls own the record for the longest high school state championship streak in any sport. So, it was unsurprising to see them take the win dominantly, winning all but two events.
Olympic gold medallist Alex Shackell—recently returned from the 2024 Short Course World Championships—was a huge factor in the team’s win, touching first in her two individual events and contributing to two relay wins. Shackell won the 200 freestyle by over five seconds, touching in 1:44.24 as she and senior Lexie Ward went 1-2 in the race. Then, she took on the 100 backstroke. She’s the defending IHSAA state champion in the event and posted a 53.23 in her first effort in the event this high school season.
Shackell also factored in the team’s winning 200 and 400 freestyle relays. She, Faith Gorey, Mollie Sweeney, and Ellie Clarke combined for a 1:31.92 to win the 200 freestyle relay. Then, Shackell led off the 400 freestyle relay in 48.91 to end her day. Maryn Sims (53.46), Addy Czarnecki (51.96), and Ward (51.43) followed Shackell, and the quartet took first in 3:25.76.
Ward and Clarke earned individual event wins for the Greyhounds, as did Molly Sweeney. Sweeney, a junior verbally committed to Tennessee, was the other female double-event winner as she took first in the 100 butterfly (53.42) and 100 breaststroke (1:02.60). She recently finished third in the 100 butterfly at the Winter Junior Championships — East, swimming a lifetime best 52.10. She also took fourth at the championships in the 100 breaststroke with a season-best 1:00.80.
Ward is headed to UNC-Chapel Hill next fall and picked up the win in the 500 freestyle. She touched in 4:50.47, leading a 1-2-3 finish for Carmel ahead of senior Kayla Barr (4:54.00) and junior Sabrina Ledwith (4:59.00).
The freshman Clarke won the 200 IM with a lifetime best 2:01.04, touching well over a second ahead of her teammate Gorey. Like many of the swimmers at this meet, Clarke had a successful showing at the Winter Junior Championships — East; she took third in the 500 freestyle, sixth in the 200 fly, and seventh in the 200 backstroke. However, the 200 IM was not one of the events she raced in Greensboro. Her time today would’ve qualified for the ‘C’ final.
Upper Arlington’s Hayden Hollingsworth and Zionsville’s Annabelle Swiney were the two non-Carmel girls to record event wins on the day. Hollingsworth, a Georgia commit, won the 50 freestyle with a 23.45; Upper Arlington went 1-3 in the race as sophomore Marin Berg touched in 23.97 for third.
Carmel didn’t win either sprint freestyle event, as Swiney got the job done in the 100 freestyle. She was out in 24.92, then split 26.48 to extend her lead on the second 50 yards, winning in 51.40. The top four swimmers—Swiney, Addy Czarnecki, Maris Williams, and Berg—were all sub-52 seconds.
Boys’ Recap
The event wins were more evenly distributed on the boys’ side of the meet. Carmel won the first two events, as the quartet of Anderson Kopp, Yi Zheng, Andrew Shackell, and Michael Gorey took the 200 medley relay in 1:29.27, and sophomore Trent Allen won the 200 freestyle in 1:39.07.
Allen was about a half-second off the lifetime best. He swam at Winter Juniors to triumph over a tight 200 freestyle race. The top three swimmers were all under 1:40 as Carrol Fort Wayne’s Mason Crews was second in 1:39.66, getting his hand on the wall ahead of Carmel’s Ethan Zhang (1:39.77). Later, Allen added a second event win in the 500 freestyle, swimming 4:27.80 to again narrowly beat Crews, a Grand Valley State commit, who clocked 4:28.17.
St. Charles Prep’s Austin Carpenter stopped Carmel’s momentum by winning the 200 IM. Carpenter held off a late surge from Homestead’s Hayden Lynam to win; Lynam split 25.61 on the freestyle leg but ran out of room to chase down the Texas class of 2026 commit. Carpenter clocked 1:48.73 for the win, nearing his lifetime best (1:48.52). Lynam earned second in 1:48.95, resetting the lifetime best (1:49.10) he clocked two weeks ago at Winter Juniors.
Carpenter doubled up on individual event wins later in the meet, swimming 54.20 to win the 100 breaststroke ahead of a 2-3 Carmel finish from Zheng (56.08) and Gorey (57.40). Finally, he helped St. Charles win the 400 freestyle relay, leading off in 44.07 as he, Jake Lloyd, Caleb Moore, and Alex Wu won in 3:01.92.
The junior Lloyd swept the sprint freestyle events at the meet. He took a hundredth off his lifetime best to win the 50 freestyle, swimming a 20.27 to beat Andrew Shackell by three hundredths. He was back on the blocks after the break for the 100 freestyle, clocking 44.98—just off his 44.85 lifetime best from this month’s Winter Juniors.
Wyatt Julian was the third individual event winner for St. Charles, taking first in the 100 backstroke with a 50.28 ahead of another 2-3 finish from Carmel. Corey Han placed second in 50.86, while Kopp finished third with 50.93.
Carmel’s depth proved to be the deciding factor on the day, but in addition to its opening event wins, Andrew Shackell provided another win in the 100 butterfly. Another Texas commit, Shackell, clocked 47.77 to win. At Winter Juniors, he posted a lifetime best of 47.04. Shackell also helped Carmel win the 200 freestyle relay, as he (20.73), Allen (20.84), Carter Hadley (20.90), and Gorey (20.12) won in 1:22.59.
Indiana is blessed with their high schools pool situation. Most big high schools have a 10 lane 50m pool.
Trent Allen and Yi Zheng recently have been 📈📈
so Aaron Shackell swam the first event? why? does that time count for anything?
Just a guess, it is a substitute for an off the blocks practice very early before meet warmup! Long day for coaches and this eliminates 2 additional hours at front end. (Lots of colleges do that with post grads although not my choice)
what a treat for the fans.
I cannot believe a sanctioned high school swim meet is permitted to have non-high school aged exhibition swimmer participate. This is not specific to Shackell. High school meets are usually strict about these things.
They did it before the meet started ….
it was a treat
Thank you for clarifying
Jake Lloyd and Austin carpenters massive forearms helped them in these relays, very impressive.
What some eloquent swims by the group of SC boys (especially Caleb Moore), in my heart SC won
When I was in high school, girls would do the 100 yard backstroke in 1:18 and the winner would be like 1:06.
O the times they are a changin
Most be my generation. I remember a girl on my high school team that swam 1:13. back. That was good time in those days in high school in the 1970’s.
Was this in the 1960s?
2026 ncaas might be very interesting depending on alexs decision!
if she joins uva (which todd more or less confirmed on the wahoo central podcast just a day after her cal decommitment https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wahoo-central-podcast-with-todd-desorbo/id749082889?i=1000673432573) theyll prob remain comfortably in pole position…
if she sticks w cal (after aaron left texas she did conspicuously unarchive her cal commitment post…) or foregoes college entirely ncaas might be the tightest in a while (maybe kinda like this years mens side)…
side note: are andrew and michael still going to texas next yr? they were noticeably absent from the texas signing day posts — wouldnt be super surprising tho given the recent roster limit news…
If Alex goes to UVA, I hope that she never has a bad swim, as Todd will have to incur the headache that comes with her father.
I’m begging someone to actually say more about their father rather than all these opaque hints. This is an anonymous comment section!
I’ve listened to that podcast – how exactly does Todd confirm that?
heavy on the more or less part! and listening back it was actually more jeff than todd but —
very briefly at the ~24min mark, when todd mentions kg is their first hs recruit who was already an olympian, jeff playfully adds “it *will* not be the last time but i wont say more” to which todd lightly qualified with a “hopefully” — alex clearly has not made any final decisions otherwise they would have announced something but that sounds like some thick intimation wrt where shes leaning (maybe she first wants to see how someone like kg adapts to their training group?)
Thanks, this makes a lot of sense – now that the OG cal commit post is back up on ig I wonder if this is less likely…
From what I understand, Alex has told her peers that she’d like to swim at Virginia – but I don’t think it’s a given that she swims anywhere in college.
Could this have been referring to Katie Grimes tho?
Who is Michael? Andrew needs to drop time.
gorey, an asu verbal who seemed to be following bb to texas
Does Carmel swim have a longer streak for state titles than Bolles School? Do we have a fact check on that?
Indiana HS swimming is 1 class.