The girls of Overland Park Blue Valley Southwest completed a four-peat over the weekend, winning their fourth consecutive Kansas high school state title in Class 5A-1A.
Full results available on Meet Mobile
It was a well-rounded team effort for Blue Valley Southwest, which won three events with a combination of 6 different swimmers – and no Blue Valley Southwest swimmer won more than a single race.
The early win came in the 200 IM, where senior Isabelle Finzen capped her high school career with a state title. Finzen was 2:09.55.
Both other wins came late, as Blue Valley Southwest won two of the final four races to seal the title.
The first came in the 200 free relay. There, Maddie Allen, Madison Ruffalo, Madison Batkiewicz and Gabbi Miller combined to go 1:42.59.
Then junior Logan Johnsen picked up the 100 breast title, going 1:06.64 to narrowly touch out Shawnee Mission Bishop Miege’s Franceska Hernandez-Nietling‘s 1:06.89.
Bishop Miege finished second overall, and also boasted the state’s top individual performer, Cailey Grunhard.
Grunhard won all four of her races, breaking three state records in the process. The junior rolled to a 53.26 in the 100 fly, smashing the old 5A-1A state record of 55.35. She won that race by about 5 seconds. Later in the meet, Grunhard returned to go 55.15 in the 100 back, taking half a second off the state record and winning by more than three.
She also led Bishop Miege to relay wins at both ends of the meet. In the night’s first event, she split a blistering 23.58 on the butterfly leg of the 200 medley relay, joining Ava Ford, Hernandez-Nietling and Cassie Grunhard to win in 1:47.99. That was another 5A-1A state record, taking four tenths off the old mark.
Then the meet closed with a 3:40.41 Bishop Miege win in the 400 free relay. Cailey Grunhard anchored in 51.58, with Cassie Grunhard, Ellie Platt and Ford rounding out the lineup.
Other event winners:
- Wichita Trinity Academy junior Taylor Kostboth narrowly missed a state record in the 50 free. Her 23.79 came within .02 seconds of the record, which has stood since 1998.
- Wichita Heights junior Katelyn Blattner was also just off a state mark. Her 4:58.55 win in the 500 free is just six tenths behind the record from 2008.
- Blattner also won the 200 free in 1:51.49.
- Wichita Trinity Academy senior Kendall Kilgore took the 100 free in 52.82.
- The diving title went to Emporia’s Haylee Weiss with a score of 449.05.
Top 5 Teams:
- Overland Park Blue Valley Southwest – 312
- Shawnee Mission Bishop Miege – 249
- Overland Park St. Thomas Aquinas – 191
- Wichita Kapaun Mt. Carmel – 183
- Maize South – 145
