Skyline Star Power Leads Championship Run with 6 Event Wins
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
March 12, 2022
ROCHESTER – Sometimes swim & dive teams ride depth and lots of top-5 finishes to state titles, while other times they rely on star power and plenty of first-place finishes.
The Ann Arbor Skyline boys team abided by the latter at Saturday’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals at Oakland University.
Of the 12 events held, Skyline finished first in six of them, riding all those first-place points to its first Finals title since it won the Division 1 crown in 2018.
Skyline finished with 291 points, ahead of runner-up Detroit U-D Jesuit’s total of 266.
Grosse Pointe South was third with 238 points.
Leading the way for Skyline was senior Even McKelvey, who had a hand in four of those first-place finishes.
“Winning with the boys is so much more fun than individually,” McKelvey said. “As Bo Schembechler said, ‘The team, the team, the team.’ That’s how we ran all season.”
McKelvey finished first in the 200-yard freestyle in a time of 1:39.21, and then won the 100 freestyle ahead of senior teammate Matthew Lee in a time of 44.89.
The team of McKelvey, junior Jack Stanton, senior Ben Kurniawan and Lee then set an LPD2 Finals record in the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:23.72.
To finish the meet off, in the 400 freestyle relay, the team of McKelvey, sophomore Lucas Caswell, Kurniawan and Lee won in a time of 3:05.63.
The individual wins were quite a jump from last year for McKelvey, who was seventh in the 100 freestyle and fifth in the 200 freestyle as a junior.
“Just sprinting it all out and doing the best I could do,” McKelvey said. “I race (good swimmers) every day in practice, so that’s the vision I had in my mind. Just race them like I do in practice.”
Kurniawan and Lee also got in the act individually, with Lee winning the 50 freestyle in a time of 20.63 and Kurniawan capturing the 100 butterfly in a time of 49.31.
“Our star power brought along the rest of the team,” Skyline coach Maureen Murett said. “The reason we were so good this year is because we had tremendous leadership from those guys. It wasn’t good enough for them that they were really good or that they were succeeding. All season long, they were the ones who brought the young guys along. That made the difference. Everybody had a role.”
While Skyline was jubilant over winning another championship trophy, there was a sense of pride for U-D Jesuit claiming the runner-up trophy because it was the best finish in program history.
Senior Drew Collins won the 200 individual medley with a time of 1:50.21, while senior Christian Bouchillon won the 100 backstroke in a time of 49.50 to lead the Cubs.
“Obviously it’s hard for the kids not to focus on the big No. 1. But they did phenomenal and swam their hearts out,” U-D Jesuit coach Drew Edson said. “It’s the best our school has ever done, and they’re happy. We’re going to stay up top for a long time, I’ll tell you that.”
Grosse Pointe South’s 200 medley relay team of junior Keiran Rahmaan, senior Drew Vandeputte, senior Jake Vallan and senior Tucker Briggs set meet record with a winning time of 1:31.85.
Other individual winners were Grosse Pointe South junior Logan Hepner in diving with 509.70 points, Walled Lake Northern junior Sean Diffenderfer in the 500 freestyle in a time of 4:35.67 and Byron Center senior Michael Grovers in the 100 breaststroke in a time of 54.54.
PHOTOS (Top) An Ann Arbor Skyline swimmer begins his leg of the 200 freestyle relay. (Middle) Detroit U-D Jesuit's Drew Collins swims the winning 200 IM. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Marquette Boys Sweep Swim Events to Repeat as UP Finals Champ
By
Travis Nelson
Special for Second Half
February 19, 2022
MARQUETTE – The Marquette boys swimming & diving team’s dominant season continued into the Upper Peninsula Finals with another impressive victory to close out the season Saturday.
Marquette won all 11 swimming events and posted second, third and fourth-place finishes in diving, and finished the meet with 368 points to repeat as champion. Houghton was next at 265. Sault Ste. Marie placed in third with 114 points, edging out Rudyard’s 106, and Manistique finished fifth with 87 points.
Marquette’s depth showed all season, and coach Nate McFarren was pleased to see it transfer to the season’s concluding event.
“I think I said last year, but I’m going to say it again this year: We never had this much depth,” McFarren said. “Winning every event except for diving, and even in diving going two, three and four (places) behind a U.P. record holder – pretty solid performance by everybody.”
Marquette’s 200-yard freestyle relay team of senior Bobby Caron and juniors Liam McFarren, Colin Vanderschaaf and Maverick Baldwin broke the school, pool and U.P. Finals records, formerly set by Marquette in 2017, by a full second in 1:29.93. There was some doubt within the team that they could break the record, but their biggest performance on the biggest stage shattered it.
“It was incredible. We were three seconds away from the record and we broke it by a full second,” Liam McFarren said. “We never thought that we would be able to do this today. We were all hoping for it, but it honestly took us all by surprise. We all swam the best times in our entire lives.”
The 200 medley relay team of McFarren, Vanderschaaf, Baldwin and junior Andrew King were also close to snapping a record, missing out by two tenths of a second. McFarren also captured individual victories in the 100 butterfly and 100 free.
Vanderschaaf also had a stellar day with individual wins in the 200 free and 100 breaststroke. The work he put in helped him earn this moment.
“(I’ve been) working hard in and out of the pool and trying to recover and swim as fast as I can,” Vanderschaaf said.
Other individual Marquette victories came from freshman Sevi Voigt in the 200 individual medley and 500 free, King in the 100 backstroke and Baldwin in the 50 free. The 400 free relay team of Caron, King, Voigt and freshman Trevor Crandell also pulled through in the final event.
“It felt really good after all the practices, all the little mishaps throughout the season and everything between,” Liam McFarren said. “It just felt good to be able to get in the water and do more than what we thought we could actually do.”
Houghton’s Quinn Aho claimed the victory in diving. His 269.90 score bested the previous record, set in 2003, by 5.1 points. The Gremlins also posted seven runner-up finishes in the meet to claim second place as a team.
PHOTOS (Top) Liam McFarren cheers on a Marquette teammate during the 200 freestyle relay Saturday. (Middle) Teammate Colin Vanderschaaf swims the 100 breaststroke on the way to winning that race. (Photos by Daryl Jarvinen. For more, email [email protected].)