staff report
INDIANAPOLIS — Addison Bray of Terre Haute South set two school records and contributed to a third Friday night as he and the Braves positioned themselves for today’s Indiana state high school swim finals at the IUPUI Natatorium.
The Braves will swim in three races today — Bray’s individual events, the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke plus the 200 medley relay — and are seeded 17th and thus the first alternate team for the 200 freestyle relay.
Also swimming again today is Terre Haute North’s Paul Morris, a third-place sectional finisher in the 100 backstroke who took eight-tenths of a second off his sectional time to earn a 15th seed — he was seeded 23rd going into Friday’s competition — for today’s consolation finals.
Also in the consolation finals is South’s 200 medley relay team of Thomas Weber, Bray, Alex Linkenheld and Brett Glendening. That team wasn’t as fast Friday as it was six days earlier at the sectional, but is seeded 13th today.
Every other South entrant was at least as fast — and usually quite a bit faster — as it had ever been, however. Glendening finished 31st in the 50 freestyle, matching his sectional time, and Bray and the freestyle relay team obliterated their previous bests.
Bray is seeded third in I-M, setting a school record of 1:52.46 that was more than two seconds faster than a week ago, and is seeded first in breaststroke after shaving 1.6 seconds off his sectional time. The relay team of Nolan Roach, Matthew Kendall, Glendening and Bray took 1.27 seconds off their sectional-winning time to finish seven spots above their seeding.
“It was a good night for us,” coach Jeff Thompson of South said in what might be considered an understatement.
Bray was also nearly a second faster than any of the other breaststroke competitors Friday, although he’ll have to repeat that performance to become a state champion.
“He was a little bit better than they were tonight,” Thompson said.
Bray is probably not going to win I-M. His time Friday was about four seconds slower than that of Chesterton’s Kyle Whitaker — arguably the best high school swimmer in the nation — even though Whitaker’s time Friday was three seconds slower than his national-record time at last year’s meet.
This year Whitaker’s target, Thompson said, is the 500 freestyle national record; he broke the state record in Friday’s swim.
West Vigo diver Shane Wycoff begins his diving competition at 9 a.m. today. Swim finals begin at 1 p.m.
