Now that the finishing touches have been put on the 2009-10 girls regular season, it's time to turn our attention to the most exciting time of the year--the IHSAA championship season.
Today is the deadline for coaches to submit their entries for sectional competition. The psych sheets will be out early next week, and the preliminary events happen a week from tonight (February 4th), in our case, at the Fishers Sectional.
I'll do a more detailed analysis of the Fishers field next week. But on paper, it appears that the battle for the championship will come down to just two teams only a few miles apart--Hamilton Southeastern and Fishers. Both are highly ranked, both are loaded with talent, and both return a significant number of the athletes who scored at the 2009 sectional. It should be a real donneybrook!
YHS has never won a girls swimming sectional title, and it won't this year. But Yorktown is positioned to be the best of the rest; finishing 3rd behind HSE and Fishers is a strong possibility. Oak Hill and Pendleton Heights are the only other teams with enough strength to push Yorktown, and those are outside possibilities. If head coach Brad Grieshop's girls swim up to their capabilities next week, look for YHS to leave Fishers with a 3rd place finish.
Of course, the sectional is part team competition, part individual. So a major portion of the focus is for the top swimmers and divers to put up their best efforts of the season to qualify for the State Meet (or the Diving Regional). Every event winner in the sectional final on February 6th automatically qualifies to go to State. Every non-winner who meets or exceeds the IHSAA qualifying standard also gets to go. If that doesn't fill the State Meet field of 32 per event, the next fastest sectional performers get "called down" to State. The top four sectional finishers in the diving competition move onto the regional.
The Lady Tigers have the potential to send several girls to Indianapolis the second week of February. Sophomore Larah Beaver scored in the 100-yard backstroke at the 2009 State Meet, and appears ready to make a strong run at qualifying for the '10 Finals in both the back and 100-yard freestyle.
Freshman Jessica Extine has the talent to make a push toward State in the 50-yard freestyle. Extine has already gone 24-mid in that event in a club meet earlier this season. Put her in a racing suit, rested and tapered, in a very fast field, and she'll have a great opportunity to punch her ticket for the Nat.
Beaver, Extine, and freshmen Kersea Gable and Caroline Grasso also have an excellent chance to get to State in the 200-yard medley relay. Their best time this season is a 1:54-high two weeks ago at the Hoosier Heritage Conference meet. The IHSAA state cut is 1:52.37; facing Fishers (which returns all four members of its 2009 sectional champion squad) and HSE will help pull Yorktown to a strong finish, especially if they all get to finals on Saturday. Beaver, Extine, Gable and Grasso might have enough to threaten the YHS school record of 1:49.91 yet this season, especially if they can qualify for the State Meet.
Finally, sophomore Sam Mahon is the Tiger with the best shot at advancing in the diving competition. Sam has dominated the event in Yorktown's dual meets this season, but she'll need to improve her scores to make it out of a sectional that may have the toughest diving field in Indiana.
More on the Fishers sectional in the coming days. Until then ...
GO TIGERS!
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