Saint Andrews, Tupelo, Madison Central Win Mississippi HS State Championships

Jackson area schools brought home 3 of the 4 Mississippi High School Swimming Championship titles at the Tupelo Aquatic center last night. Saint Andrews Episcopal School won both the girls and boys Class I Swimming Championship (a repeat on the girls side) while Madison Central won the girls Class II Championship. Host team Tupelo High School repeated as boys Class II Champions, this was their 8th straight boys title. Mississippi divides its championship meet into Class I (smaller schools) & Class II (larger schools).

Class I

Jack Smithson set 4 State Records at the Mississippi High School State Championship meet on Saturday. (Courtesy: Corey Coon-Cassily)

Saint Andrews girls & boys started off their championship drive with victories in the 200 Medley relays. Saint Andrews Alex Good tied her own record in the 200FR with a 1:54.48. Walker Todd of Amory won the boys 200FR in 1:51.33. Alex’s twin sister Carly then won the 200IM by almost 10 seconds, 2:13.67. Saint Andrews’ Jack Smithson broke both the class I and the overall state record in the 200IM with a NCSA qualifying time of 1:56.25. What made it even more of an impressive swim was the fact that he won by almost 20 seconds. Emily Mansour of St Joe Greenville & Rhet Hailey of MS School of Math and Science won the 50FR’s with Emily breaking the record in 24.97.

Saint Andrews continued their success in the 100FL with Maggie Gleason & Jack Smithson picking up gold medals. Maggie was just off her own record while Jack broke his record with a 51.86. Alex Good scored her second individual victory with a second record in the 100FR, 52.60. Jack Collins of St. Joseph Catholic won the boys 100FR in a close race over Peter Neto of Saint Stanislaus, 51.67-51.94. Cait Chandler of Vancleave High School won the 500FR in 5:35.36 and Thatcher Shepherd of Saint Andrews broke the boys’ state record with a 5:01.59.

St. Joseph Catholic’s 200FR girls relay (Sophia Waddingham, Avery Nicholas, Anna Chris Nicholas, Niijor May) won in 1:47.81 while the Saint Andrews boys relay broke the record in 1:36.17 (Scott Kennedy, James Zheng, Ben Hearon, Jack Smithson).

Maggie Gleason and Rhet Hailey both picked up their second individual victories of the night in the 100BK, going 1:01.00 & 57.63 respectively. The 100BR also had second victories for Carly Good and Thatcher Shepard. Saint Andrews finished off their championship runs with victories in both of the 400FR relays. The boys (Anthony Santangelo, Thatcher Shepard, James Zheng, Jack Smithson) set a new record with a time of 3:29.04.

Class II

Taylor Ballard, State Record-Setter, Poses with Ricky Berens after breaking a State Record this weekend. Courtesy: Corey Coon-Cassily

Madison Central stopped Tupelo from again sweeping the team championships by starting the night off with a class II and MHSAA record in the 200 Medley relay 1:49.90 (Kalin Tang, Jessica Blanchard, Chandler Carter, Paige Kessler). The Oak Grove boys relay (Lane Evans, Nicholas Sciortino, Alex Miller, Elliott Watt) won in a time of 1:42.38. Laken Vickers of Starkville won the first individual event of the night in the 200FR with a close victory over Northwest Rankin’s AK Mitchell.

Sean Dillinger of West Harrison used a strong first 100 to build a lead he never gave up to win the boys 200FR in 1:46.15. Taylor Ballard of Brandon used a dominating breaststroke leg to break both the class II and MHSAA records in the 200IM in 2:08.05. Noah Young of Clinton was just off of the record in his IM victory of 1:57.16. The splash and dash 50FR’s lived up to their name with two very close finals. Kyjana Webber of Harrison Central outtouched Paige Kessler of Madison Central 24.19-24.46. On the guys side both winner Ashton Robertson of Biloxi 21.64 & Oak Grove’s Elliot Watt 21.79 were under the old class II record.

Cris Roberts of Tupelo led start to finish in setting new class II & MHSAA records in the 100FL, 56.26. Alex Miller of Oak Grove (only an 8th grader) won the boys 100FL over senior Reed Mitchell of Northwest Rankin with a strong last 50. Kyjana Webber had a little easier time in winning the 100FR in 52.87, just off her own record. Stetson Lamb of Hernando set new class II & MHSAA records with a dominating performance in the 100FR, 46.82. Madison Central’s Chloe Tritschler won the girls 500FR in 5:26.77. Tupelo’s Donovan Crossen staved off Oak Grove senior Cole Sisson to gain the victory in the boys 500FR, 4:55.02.

Madison Central’s girls (Chandler Carter, Jessica Blanchard, Maddie Howell, Paige Kessler) won their second relay in record fashion, bettering both the class II & MHSAA records. Tupelo boys (Liam Manning, Donovan Crossen, Chris Burpo, Luke Deaton) held off hard charging teams from Starkville & Oak Grove, 1:31.34-1:31.40-1:31.93. Cris Roberts picked up her second individual win of the night by using a fast second 50 to stay ahead of Madison Central’s Kalin Tang in the 100BK, 59.60-1:00.36.

Noah Young missed out on the record in the 200IM but would not be denied in the back, breaking it by 0.26 in 54.31. Lane Evans of Oak Grove & Khameron Glass of Brandon, both freshmen, were 2nd and 3rd in that 100 back.

Taylor Ballard scored her second victory in the 100BR but just missed out on another record, 1:05.79-1:05.72. The top 3 finishers in the boys 100BR were all under the old record of 1:00.26. Jacob Nichols of Oxford set the new record with 59.15, while Stetson Lamb 59.28 & Josh Williamson of Brandon 59.79, had to settle for being under the old record.

Tupelo girls and boys 400FR relays finished off the championship event with victories for their school.