Jackson girls swimming team reach new heights at meet

While Jackson swimmers put together several outstanding individual performances at Saturday's City of Roses Invitational, Indians coach Carol Baugh may have been most proud of a team accomplishment.

Jackson finished third at the 17-team meet at the Central High School pool. Parkway North won, and Parkway Central took second.

"We talked about it earlier, and this is the first trophy for girls or boys swimming that we've brought home from an invitational swim meet," Baugh said. "We're very, very pleased with the overall results."

Jackson set the tone for the day by finishing third in the day's first event, the 200-yard medley relay. The time of 2 minutes, 0.82 seconds was more than a half second better than the team's previous best time and qualified the team of Katie Garner, Kyleigh Troxel, Jeanette Powell and Allison Hobbs for the state meet in St. Peters, Mo., in four weeks. The team bested the qualifying time by 11 hundredths of a second.

Garner, a junior, kicked off the relay with a strong backstroke leg. She said the absence of clocks displaying split times at the Central pool helped her performance.

Central's Kelsi McBride competes in the 200 individual medley during Saturday's City of Roses meet.

"At this meet, it's really nice because they don't have your individual splits on the clock, so you don't know truly how fast you're going," she said. "Being first, I know that I have to go under a certain time, and not knowing if I went under that makes me more motivated to get my teammates going and get them under their time."

Jackson assistant coach Ashley Reinagel agreed that the fast start set the tone for the other three team members.

"Katie had a wonderful start," said Reinagel, noting that Troxel and Powell both shaved about a second off their normal times for the breaststroke and butterfly legs.

Hobbs turned in a strong freestyle anchor leg to nail down the state-qualifying performance.

Troxel, who finished ninth in the 500 freestyle as a freshman at last year's state meet, skipped that event as well as the 200 individual medley Saturday. Having already qualified for this year's state meet in those events, she and her coaches made the decision to focus on the 200 freestyle, which is run immediately after the individual medley at the state meet.

Notre Dame's Shelby McCord swims in the sixth heat of the 200 yard freestyle during the City of Roses Invitational at Cape Central Junior High School on Saturday, Jan. 22, 2011. (Kristin Eberts)

The strategy is working so far. Troxel placed second in the 200 freestyle Saturday, bettering her personal best by 1.3 seconds. That was more than 4 seconds under the state-qualifying time.

Hobbs, who will be swimming next year for the University of Northern Iowa, won the 100 backstroke. She already had posted a state-qualifying time in the event.

St. Vincent freshman Natalie King qualified for state in that event for the first time with a fifth-place finish.

Hobbs (second) and freshman Morgan Maquire (fourth) both broke into the top five in the 500 freestyle to help Jackson's team total. Both swam times that bettered the state cut.

Notre Dame sophomore Morgan Morris qualified for state in the 200 freestyle, knocking about 1.5 seconds off her previous best time. She said that qualifying for state only was a matter of time.

Central's Lizzie Schmidt competes in the 100-yard butterfly during Saturday's City of Roses Invitational. (Kristin Eberts)

"I've gone [the qualifying time] before, so I wasn't really too worried about it," said Morris, who already had qualified for state in the 500 freestyle.

Morris, who added a second-place finish in the 100 freestyle, helped the Bulldogs take 11th place in the team standings.

Central freshman Maddie Siefert took third in a state-cut time in the 100 breaststroke. The Tigers' Lizzie Schmidt placed second in the 200 individual medley, helping her team place 10th.

Results

Team scores -- 1. Parkway North 402; 2. Parkway Central 362; 3. Jackson 235; 4. Lindbergh 217.5; 5. Nerinx Hall 172; 6. Springfield Central 161; 7. Eureka 146; 8. Rockwood Summit 122; 9. Glendale 107; 10. Cape Central 101; 11. Notre Dame-Cape 79; 12. Webster Groves 73; 13. Ozark 69.5; 14. St. Vincent 21; 15. Poplar Bluff 20; 16. University City 16; 17. MICDS 7

Jackson's Whitney Dittmer competes in the 200 individual medley during Saturday's City of Roses Invitational.

Local top-16 finishers

200 medley relay -- 3. Jackson (Katie Garner, Kyleigh Troxel, Jeanette Powell, Allison Hobbs) 2:00.82; 8. Central (Chleo LeGrand, Maddie Siefert, Lizzie Schmidt, Sydney Ozbun) 2:10.12; 12. Notre Dame (Eva Schafer, Mary-Liz Klueppel, Jessica Pfau, Shelby Ray) 2:23.10

200 freestyle -- 2. Troxel (J) 2:00.33; 7. Morgan Morris (ND) 2:03.48; 11. Shelby McCord (J) 2:10.11; 12. Siefert (C) 2:10.69

200 individual medley -- 2. Schmidt (C) 2:23.18; 5. Morgan Maquire (J) 2:25.71

50 freestyle -- 16. Powell (J) 28.28

Diving -- 8. Claire Gillard (J) 277.40; 11. LeGrand (C) 246.50

100 butterfly -- 5. Troxel (J) 1:03.94; 9. Garner (J) 1:05.54; 12. Schmidt (C) 1:05.83

100 freestyle -- 2. Morris (ND) 57.06; 7. McCord (J) 59.17; 10. Natalie King (SV) 59.61

500 freestyle -- 2. Hobbs (J) 5:17.25; 4. Maquire (J) 5:35.29; 13. Ray (ND) 6:25.47; 14. Mandy Whitlow (J) 6:26.25

200 freestyle relay -- 8. Jackson (McCord, Taylor Nolan, Garner, Powell) 1:52.36; 12. Notre Dame (Natalie Brewer, Kate Bohn, Klueppel, Morris) 2:00.95; 14. Central (Josie Young, Hannah Wiggs, Molly Kinder, Mallory Dickson) 2:05.36

100 backstroke -- 1. Hobbs (J) 1:02.03; 5. King (SV) 1:05.35; 13. Garner (J) 1:09.37

100 breaststroke -- 3. Siefert (C) 1:12.56; 13. Whitlow (J) 1:22.49

400 freestyle relay -- 2. Jackson (Hobbs, McCord, Maquire, Troxel) 3:55.59; 6. Notre Dame (Morris, Bohn, Ray, Schafer) 4:15.60; 7. Central (LeGrand, Siefert, Ozbun, Schmidt) 4:16.88