Bears End the Season with Historic High Finish for the Boys and Podium for the Girls
Finals of the swimming portion of the meet on Thursday, February 6th ended with the Bears bringing home a trophy for the seventh time in a row. While the boys narrowly missed making the podium, the girls once again proved that the program is deep and strong and continues its legacy of excellence of competitive performance.
The meet started off with a lot of pressure on the boys' team. With the top seed for the medley relay, the Bears had a target on their back. Tayne Naude kicked off the relay with backstroke. He touched the wall first and gave the Bears the lead with the first leg. Gavin Schoeling dove in and had an impressive 50-breaststroke to keep the Bears narrowly at the front. Oscar Ryzhkov dove in and had an amazing 50-butterfly split, but the competitive leg brought a lot of competition from the other teams and they fell back slightly. Jax Jackson dove in for the 50-freestyle and kept the Bears in contention and secured a second-place finish. With the officials making an early take-off call, the Bears were unable to claim their medals on the podium, but had an amazing swim and would have shaved 1.5-seconds off of their school record that they set the day before.
The girls came in with similar pressure and now with the boys not on the podium, the race was on to recapture the energy for the Bears. Amber Naude kicked off the girls with backstroke and had a great swim to keep the Bears with the leading pack of teams. Caroline Gaines had a great exchange and took on the breaststroke leg like a pro, keeping the Bears tight. Jennifer Griner had a new best split in the 50-butterfly and the Bears were racing with the top teams from Blessed Trinity and Marist. With those three teams dominating the front of the pack, no one else was even close. Marist had a body-length lead to capture first place, but Blessed Trinity and Cambridge fought to the last touch with Caroline Garijo on the last leg of the relay, and the Bears got out-touched. A podium finish for the Bears was awesome and certainly kicked off the girls' end-of-night podium chase. Combined with the dive points from Tuesday, they were well on their way.
In the boys' 200-freestyle, Jax Jackson was the only Cambridge athlete competing. He was in the A-final and had a podium finish in mind. With a new best time closed, Jackson took eighth place overall and grabbed 15 points for the Bears.
For the girls, Molly Melchiors qualified for the B-final. At the end of finals, Melchiors had to compete with a field of athletes that were all crushing their best times, so she had a battle on her hands. She claimed 15th place and 6 points for the Bears. Jennifer Griner was the representative from Cambridge in the A-final. Coming in as the third place seed, she had gold on her mind. Very quickly, Griner and the top swimmer from Blessed Trinity pulled themselves away from the pack. With a body-length or more between them and everyone else, it was a fight through every stretch. At the end of the race, Griner trailed by less than a second and took state runner-up for her second medal of the night.
In the boys 200-individual medley, the boys had two representatives fighting for points. Yan Berezitsky had a time drop in prelims and hoped to shave off more time. With the racing field tightly packed, he nearly matched his prelims time and took 19th place. Gavin Schoeling was in the A-final and gunning for a school record and his first medal of the night. He kept himself with the pack that led the heat and just couldn't pull away enough. He missed the podium and took fourth place, with a difference of less than a half-second.
For the girls, Caroline Gaines was the only one from the Lady Bears competing and she secured her place in the A-final. With solid splits and chipping her way through the race, Gaines finished in ninth place with a time that nearly matched her preliminary time.
The boys' 50-freestyle was incredibly exciting and was anyone's race. With such a short distance, the field is always tight and the winner can often not be spotted by visual confirmation alone. Tayne Naude went into the race as the third place seed and jumped in a little behind the front group. After the turn, Naude pulled away and fought down to the finish line with the top contenders. With a three one-hundredths of a second lead, Naude claimed state runner-up which is the first medal in the event the boys' team has ever had. His time also set a new school record of 21.33.
In the girls' event, two girls had qualified for the A-final. Caroline Garijo had secured her place in the top final of the event. After touching with a new best time by over a second at prelims, the chances of another major time drop were not significant. Putting all of her effort in, she nearly matched her prelims time and secured tenth place and 13 points for the Bears. Amber Naude was set up to fight it out for the top spots in the event, with a very stacked lineup of female athletes. Swimming almost the exact same time as her entry, Naude secured fourth place and 19 points.
In the boys' 100-freestyle, two boys qualified to return to the B-final. John Murphy and Bryson Mynatt were seeded right next to each other after prelims and intended to jump the ranks to score some more points for the Bears. Murphy had touched with a new best time at prelims, and he managed to drop even more time and finish with another half-second shave to take 17th place. Mynatt secured 18th place with a time that nearly matched his preliminary time.
Alana Drevet was the only girl that came back for the 100-freestyle. Drevet had swam a new best time in prelims to qualify to return and then she nearly matched her entry time for finals to secure 20th place points.
The 500-freestyle was a prime opportunity for the Bears to score points for the boys and girls. Yan Berezitsky had been named the first alternate after prelims, but with a scratch, Berezitsky was slated to return. With a new best time in prelims, Berezitsky had a difficult time matching the energy required for the race and settled to remain in 20th place, which still contributed to the team score. Jax Jackson qualified to return to the A-final and he managed to shave time off of his preliminary swim and secure ninth place, which was an advancement of one spot from prelims.
For the girls, they also had two in the A-final for the event. Molly Melchiors had an amazing swim in prelims and shaved off over eight-seconds from her time. In finals, she struggled to keep up with the same pace and took ninth, which earned the team 14 points. Jennifer Griner was gunning to maintain her state championship title in the event. At the beginning of the race, the top swimmer from Blessed Trinity challenged Griner and took the lead early in the event. With great race strategy, Griner let her sit in that spot and burn herself out as she waited to make their move. Slowly but surely, Griner saw her fall back and that's when Griner made her move. Once that move was initiated, Griner never looked back. Finishing three-seconds before the second place, Griner had claimed the title once again.
The boys had a chance for revenge in the 200-freestyle relay. After missing the podium in the first event, the boys were hungry for a medal. The top seed is a difficult place to sit and everyone wants to take you over. Tayne Naude jumped in and fixed his start to break the surface at the front of the pack. With a really fast lead-off, Oscar Ryzhkov jumped in. With the Marist and Westminster second legs jumping in and speeding forward, the Bears were falling behind. Jax Jackson took the third leg and had to dig really deep for speed since he had just competed in the 500-freestyle. Jackson held on and chipped away to crawl the Bears back near the front. Gavin Schoeling jumped in with the Bears hanging around third place. With an incredible breakout and turn, Schoeling challenged the anchor from Westminster and Marist and in the final stretch, pulled away and touched the wall first. With a split of 21.24, Schoeling passed up at least three people in order to make that finish possible. The race was absolutely incredible and the boys, for the first time in Cambridge history, won the relay.
The energy tides turned with the boys' win, and it was the girls' turn. With some personnel changes in some of the other top relays, the Bears had a fight ahead of them. Caroline Garijo led off the relay and kept the Bears in contention. Jennifer Griner got only a short rest after her 500-free and medaling ceremony before the relay, but she jumped in second and helped the Bears gain traction. Caroline Gaines jumped in and swam her fastest split she's ever had to set up Amber Naude for the final leg. The girls were trailing and could see the third place team, but even with Naude's amazing anchor split, they couldn't make up enough group and took fourth.
In the 100-backstroke, John Murphy qualified for the B-final heat with a new best time. Somehow, Murphy had enough gas in the tank to shave off even more time and hold his 16th place spot. Tayne Naude was posing to challenge the line up to get on the podium for the A-final. Doing just what he had to do to set himself up for a prime spot at prelims, he had gas in the tank to do more damage. Cutting off almost a full second from his prelims time, he challenged the top contender and finished close behind to claim state runner-up.
For the girls, Amber Naude was the only girl that made it back. With a best time well below what she did at prelims, Naude was set up to challenge the top contenders for the podium. Coming back to the very last five-yards, Naude took fourth with a time over a second faster than prelims.
In the 100-breaststroke, Gavin Schoeling was the only Bear in the boys' competition. Schoeling did enough to set him up for finals and he was determined to get on the podium. Going in as the fifth place seed, Schoeling could be an unexpected challenge to the top contenders. With consistently solid turns, Schoeling crept up on the competition throughout the race and made the final reach to secure the bronze medal, which was his first individual state medal and the first boy to medal in the event in Cambridge history.
The last event of the night was critical for both teams. For the boys' team, qualifying for the A-final was huge and opened up an opportunity for the boys to score some last minute points. Yan Berezitsky led off the relay. After draining a lot of his energy with the IM and 500-free earlier in the night, he was really challenged to kick the relay off with a strong start. Starting with a really great time, John Murphy took over. After hitting a new best time in his individual, he was set up to do some damage in the second leg. Bryson Mynatt took to the water as the third leg. With a split that was much faster than his individual, Mynatt kept the Bears in the game. Oscar Ryzhkov took over as the anchor and raced down the lane next to them and surpassed them with a healthy distance going into the last 50-yards. Ryzhkov broke 50-seconds for his leg of the race and jumped the guys from their 8th place seed to 7th place. While the boys tried really hard to recover from the lost opportunity for points in the medley relay, they fell short by 41 points to get on the podium. Even by taking fourth, they set a new high placing for the boys' program and scored the most points in program history.
The girls' relay was going to play a critical role for the Bears to get on the podium. Caroline Garijo started them off with a solid split and then Molly Melchiors took the second leg. After a heavy schedule of competition, Melchiors still managed to have a great split. Leila Kader broke her best time from the day before and went even faster and then Alana Drevet brought the relay home. The Bears took 10th place and secured the girls' spot on the podium for another year. The Bears beat the Westminster Wildcats by only four points to be on the podium.
The Bears are losing 15 seniors after this season, but the Bears underclassmen are energized and excited to continue the legacy of excellence. The athletes are hungry for more and the future looks bright for the Bears.