Pittsford sophomore Katie Smith will emerge from the 2013 New York Girls’ High School State Championship meet with the State Record and a bright future, but it is Clarence senior Dina Rommel who ended her career with the last laugh.
Nobody was able to dip under 23 seconds, but the defending champion Rommel was a 23.13 to grab the win, with Smith taking 2nd in 23.24.
Madeline Murphy was 3rd in 23.76 and Sarah Baxter took 4th in 23.88.
That big early win for Rommel gave her Clarence team some momentum and helped lift them to a 18-point victory over runners-up Pittsford in the team battle, with the final score coming out 240-222.
top 5 team finishers
1. Clarence 240
2. Pittsford 222
3. Bellmore-Merrick 145
4. Canandaigua 144
5. Orchard Park 132
That 50 free was one of two victories for Rommel on the day, and it was a lifetime best for her as well. Her other victory wasn’t quite her fastest ever, but it was a hard-fought win in a deep 100 fly field with a 55.77. There she beat out Sam Suer, just a freshman, who was 56.01; and Section 6 rival Makayla Sargent from Olean High School.
Sargent got a win of her own in the 200 IM in perhaps the most talked-about event of the meet coming in. She was the state runner-up last year as a freshman, but won this year in 2:02.80.
The biggest difference for Sargent this year was that she attacked the first 150 yards of her race much harder than she did last season. Though that wound up costing her some on the closing freestyle leg, she had built a huge gap by then, and she wound up going a lifetime best by half-a-second.
In a fairly rare occurrence for a high school meet, there wound up not being a single double individual winner in this entire meet.
Other single winners include Massapequa senior Molly Treble, who won the girls’ 200 free in 1:49.98.
In the 100 free, sophomore Andrea Ernst won in 50.88, using a big back-half to run down Katie Smith. Ernst’s winning time was 50.88, with Smith taking 2nd in 51.26.
Sarah Baxter took 3rd in 51.30, and Cara Treble, Molly’s younger sister, was 4th in 21.52.
The 500 free was won by Pittsford freshman Lindsay Stone in 4:49.03. She just-barely kept Molly Treble from being the only winner of the meet; Stone placed 5th last year as an 8th-grader, but dropped more than 11 seconds as a freshman to overtake the defending champion. Treble finished 2nd, just two-tenths behind Stone, with a 4:49.24.
The 100 back title went to Greeley sophomore Emma Hadley, who wins our most-improved award for this year’s meet. Hadley was only 27th in this 100 back as a freshman last year with a modest 1:00.6. This year, she knocked four seconds off of that time to go a 56.71 and take her first state title, a tenth ahead of Lancaster freshman Kristen Romano (56.81).
Hadley still has some more improvement she can make though; unusually, despite winning that 100 back, she didn’t even final in her other event, the 100 fly (30 swimmers are divided up between an A, B, and C final in New York).
The last individual win of the day went to Long Beach freshman Margaret Aroesty in 1:04.10 She finished just ahead of Nicole Petta who was 2nd in 1:04.66.
Though there were many great individual performances at this meet, the 200 medley wound up being all about balance and depth. In that race, Ward-Melville High won in 1:48.38, anchored by a 23.91 from Rachael Bertini. They won that relay despite not having a single individual winner at the meet. St Anthony’s took 2nd in 1:48.94.
Rommel’s Clarence relay, which was the top seed out of prelims, wound up being DQ’ed in finals.
Pittsford saved their star, Smith, for the two free relays. In the 200 free relay, they won going away by two full seconds over Clarence with a 1:35.34. The winning quartet was Stephanie Andrews, Emma Corby, Lindsay Stone, and Katie Smith, with those last two splitting 23.93 and 22.71, respectively. Clarence took 2nd in 1:37.34, though they didn’t use Rommel in that race.
In the meet-closing 400 free relay, at which time barring a DQ the team scores were all-but-decided, we got the first relay head-to-head between both of those teams’ top sprint groups. Clarence led off Rommel, who was a 51.19, and though Katie Smith split a 50.02 on Pittsford’s anchor leg, the deficit was too much to make up. Clarence took the win 3:26.98-3:27.25, with the winners being Rommel (51.19), Rebecca Anthone (51.37), Victoria Butler (52.25), and Sydney Modeas (52.17).
The boys’ State Championship meet will be in the spring. Full meet results are available on the Meet Mobile app.
where do you see all the results for this meet?
I predicted earlier a top 10 finish for the cavalier girls this year in NCAAs. Just wait …
I’m thinking top 6 for the women.
so i assume if she’s signed with uva she is the younger sister of charlie? well, uva has an incredibly solid group of mid distance freestyler, IM and stroke specialists. maybe a top 10 ncaa finish is looming for the lady cavs?
Congratulations to Dina Rommel. She will be a nice addition to UVa next year…you go girl!