Recap: Boys’ State Swimming

Photo by Reilly Moreland 

The boys’ varsity swim team defended their state title for the third time in row. Winning by 112.5 points over second-place finisher Blue Valley North at the 6A championships in Topeka this past weekend, the team amassed the most points in school history with a total of 394.5 points.

“There were a few factors [contributing to the win: the biggest one being the depth of the swim team.” Assistant Coach Colby Dischinger said. “We brought more swimmers to the meet than any other team, but on top of that, most of them swam both days. The other reason is that our team sat the tone for the meet on Day 1 with great swims which lead to a big jump in the scoring gap between us and the rest of the state.”

Senior Ian Longan and junior Evan Root placed first and second respectively in the 100 yard back. Longan was the only individual state champion for East.

“It was a very exciting weekend and I was so proud to be a part of it,” Longan said. “It’s been a dream of mine to become an individual state champion, so to have that come true is incredible. Everyone swam with heart this weekend and to the best of their ability and I couldn’t be more proud of my teammates.”

The 400 freestyle relay team, consisting of  Longan, Aidan Holbrook, Hayden Linscott and Root placed first and broke the state record with a time of 3:08:04.

“To be able to say I am state record holder is just amazing,” Longan said. “We knew we had a pretty good chance of breaking that record so it was really awesome to finally achieve that goal after so much hard work.”

East pulled in more points when junior Aidan Holbrook took third place in the 200-yard freestyle and three other East swimmers placing in the top 15 of that event.