This past weekend the swim team competed in the 32nd Annual VSIS State Swimming Championship. The team swam themselves into second place by scoring 220 points. They were second to Paul VI, who scored 291. Hargrave was followed by Hampton Roads Academy and Collegiate with 209 points and in 5th place St. Christopher’s with 204 points.
However, Hargrave was outscored on the diving boards this weekend by both Collegiate and St. Christopher’s, leaving the team with an overall finish of 4th in the state. The final order of finish was Paul VI with 291 points Collegiate with 244 points, scoring 35 points on diving, St. Christopher 243, scoring 39 points on diving, and Hargrave Military Academy with 226.
Hargrave Military Academy fourth place finish was an improvement over last year of some 8 spots as they could only muster a 12th place finish last year.
This year the team was led by Sophomore Patrick Martelli. Patrick scored 30 points for the team and did so by finishing 3rd in the 100 Butterfly and 5th in the 200 IM. Patrick was closely followed by Graham Wooten. Graham, also a sophomore, scored 29 points and accomplished this by finishing 2nd in the 100 Backstroke and 7th in the 100 Freestyle.
Individuals also contributing points to the team effort included Freshman Jacob Dole, with 21 points, Seniors Jared Wood, with 16 points and Mike Wheeler with 13 points, Junior James Eu with 12 points and Sophomore Drew Bennett with 7 points.
The team posted 18 lifetime best swims out of the 22 swims they had in the meet. They also posted best times in the 200 Medley Relay and 400 Freestyle Relay. The 400 Freestyle Relay went a season best 3:18.02, which was more than five seconds faster than their conference pace en route to their second place finish. Their old time was a conference record, too. The 200 Medley Relay went 1:40.34, just missing the High School All-American time by .7 seconds, but more than three seconds faster than they went at conference when they set the conference record. That team took a 3rd place finish at States.
Hargrave placed six Cadets on the All State Team this year. There were many outstanding performances, but none more than Jacob Dole breaking Hargrave’s Freshman Varsity 100 Freestyle record going a lifetime best by more than 1 second at 49.56.
The team will next be in action this weekend as they travel to Philadelphia, PA, on Thursday as they attempt to be the second team from Virginia to ever finish in the Top 10 schools at the 106th annual running of the Eastern Prep Schools Championship. The only team from Virginia to ever finish in the Top 10 was Woodberry Forest in 2003 with a 7th place finish. The State team will be joined by Post-Graduate swimmers Mike Miller, Andrew Hetzner, Andrew Duwell, Josh Flage, Phillip Sgrignoli, and Clark Sprinkle. These athletes are allowed to swim at Easterns, due to meet rules.
