In Oklahoma high school swimming, the class 6A (big schools) boys meet saw a ferocious late-meet comeback overcome by Norman North, while on the girls’ side, Bartlesville won the team title while swimmers broke over half the state’s records.
Boys Meet
Norman North put on a dominating show in individual event wins on the boys’ side, overcoming two late Bartlesville relay wins to take the team crown by 42 points.
Justin Wu led the charge, sweeping the distance free events and narrowly missing records in both. Wu went 1:39.16 to run away with the 200 free by well over three seconds, missing his own 6A state record by three hundredths of a second. He then went 4:30.34 to win the 500 free by more than 13 seconds, missing another 6A state record by just .04.
Norman North also took home the 100 backstroke title, courtesy of James Dyer in 51.15.
Dyer also led off the team’s winning 200 medley relay, splitting a field-best 23.69 to help Nic Newton, Jesse Yue and Anthony Rayburn go 1:37.33. Yue’s fly split of 23.15 was also the fastest of the field.
But despite all that, Bartlesville made a late charge, winning three of the last four events and four of the last six. That included a sweep of the free relays.
Kyle Ward, Peyton Stambeck, Aaron Stanek and Mason McCauley combined to go 1:26.89 in the 200 free relay, only eight tenths off the 6A state record. Then Stanek, Stambeck, Thomas Downey and Ward went 3:10.49 to win the 400 free relay, outlasting Norman North by about a second and a half.
Stanek won twice individually for Bartlesville, taking the 50 free (21.41) and 100 free (46.50) in big wins over Norman North swimmers. Also winning for Bartlesville was Downey, who took the 100 breast in 58.21.
Also winning twice was Edmond North’s Joe Short. Short won the 200 IM in the day’s closest race, going 1:54.59 to steal the title by .01 from Edmond Memorial’s Jonathan Ye. Then Short came back for another hotly-contested win, going 50.20 to nip Bartlesville’s Ward by .08 for the 100 fly title.
Top 5 Teams
- Norman North – 379
- Bartlesville – 337
- Edmond North – 236.5
- Edmond Memorial – 213
- Norman – 185
Girls Meet
The girls meet saw 6 of the state’s 11 class 6A state records fall, including three of them to Bartlesville’s Kate Steward.
The meet started with a record, when Bartlesville went 1:47.66 to break the former 200 medley relay state record by 1.6 seconds. That team featured Delaney Shipman, Steward, Greta Olsen and Haley Downey, and saw Steward put up the field’s fastest breaststroke split (29.97) and Downey the fastest free split (23.44).
Later on, Steward and Downey returned to join Allison Biddinger and Emily Giovannetti on the winning 200 free relay, where the foursome went 1:37.27 to blow past the state record by another 1.6 seconds. That team featured a 23.83 from Downey and a 24.09 from Steward.
Just two events later, Steward would go 1:04.51 to win the 100 breaststroke and break her third class 6A record of the meet, getting three tenths under the old mark, which had stood since 1993.
Bartlesville also won the 400 free relay, with Biddinger, Avery Bennett, Shipman and Giovannetti going 3:37.19, led by a 53.63 leadoff from Biddinger and a 53.39 anchor from Giovannetti.
Edmond North’s Rylee Linhardt broke two individual state records of her own. Lindhardt went 1:49.61 to barely sneak under the old record of 1:49.70 in the 200 free. She came back to win the 100 backstroke, too, going 56.52 to get two tenths under the record set by future Stanford Cardinal Sam Woodward.
The meet’s other record went to Linhardt’s Edmond North teammate Ally Robertson, who went 2:02.74 to win the 200 IM, breaking her own 6A record set in 2013.
Broken Arrow’s Breonna Barker doubled up, sweeping the sprints in the 6A meet. Her 23.42 was the only 23-second swim in the 50 free, and her 50.63 in the 100 free was maybe even more dominating, winning by 2.4 seconds.
Other individual winners:
- Norman North’s Tiffany Wu in the 100 fly (57.78)
- Edmond Memorial’s Katie Callahan in the 500 free (5:03.99)
Top 5 Teams
- Bartlesville – 333
- Edmond Memorial – 295
- Edmond North – 286
- Norman North – 279
- Jenks – 248
