Led by Coach Laurie Clark, the Aquatic Owls returned Saturday evening from the Tennessee State High School Swimming Championships in Nashville, ending an incredible 53-9 regular season. State swim team members included seniors Geer Alexander, Jamie Drinan, and John Harkess; juniors Tyler Beard, Austin Chu, and Gatlin Hardin; and sophomores Kevin Wang and Hank Wynn.
The 400 freestyle relay team of Alexander, Drinan, Harkess, and Wang recorded not only personal best times individually for each swimmer, but also a personal best time for the relay. The time of 3:59.49 was more than 10 seconds faster than the 4:09.74 recorded at the county meet .
The 200 freestyle relay team of Harkess, Wynn, Alexander, and Drinan also posted best personal times for team members individually, and a best time for the relay. Shaving more than five full seconds off the season best time, the relay team had a time of 1:44.25.
The 200 medley relay team, consisting of Beard, Chu, Drinan, and Wang, also swam well, posting a 2:07.02.
Individual qualifiers from MUS at the state level included Drinan in the 50 freestyle and Chu in the 200 individual medley events.
The swim team this year, with double the participants from last year, also included juniors Sam Buckner, Gordon Conaway, Sean Curran, Andrew Dillon, Joseph Robinson, and Nicholas Vincent; sophomores Jonathan Barnes, Josh Evensky, Drew Fleming, Tommy Horton, Sashank Karri, Ben Katz, Jonathan Lunati, Cody Mayer, Warner Russell, Parth Sheth, Aaron Struminger, and Jon-Michael Tayler; freshman Collier Calandruccio, Jim Carter, Taylor Maury, and Dex Witte; and 8th grader Erim Sarinoglu.
They had a great season this year and look forward to next year.