LENEXA – With one event left in the KSHSAA Class 6A boys state swimming and diving championships on Saturday, it really was winner take all.

Blue Valley North held a slim 6-point lead over reigning champion Shawnee Mission East heading into the 400-yard freestyle relay. Neither team had finished first in any of the prior 11 events, but a gold-medal finish in this one would secure the team title for either school.

The Mustangs knew going into that relay that even second-place finish would open the door for Shawnee Mission East to create a co-champions scenario, but Blue Valley North’s quartet of junior Alec Lopez, sophomore Wilson Riekhof, freshman Jack Munro and senior Michael Mayo did not want to leave things to chance.

Blue Valley North won the relay and secured the team title with 268 points to state runner-up Shawnee Mission East’s 252. Blue Valley Northwest took third with 225 points. The Mustangs won their first state title since 2014.
 

“It felt awesome,” Mayo said. “We put in a lot of work this season. We started from behind at the start of the meet, but we all gave it our best efforts, moved up places and finished hard to get the W.”

The race started with Blue Valley Northwest sophomore Micah Churchill putting the Huskies in the lead after the first 100 yards, only for prelim leader Olathe Northwest to move out front thanks to senior Farrell Joswara.

Riekhof and Munro allowed the Mustangs to catch up with their EKL foes, even if the Ravens held their advantage as the race reached the anchors.

That’s when Mayo put on the jets with a 46.89 on the final 100 to touch the wall first to clinch the state title. Olathe Northwest took second in the relay, followed by Blue Valley Northwest in third. Shawnee Mission East settled for fourth in the race.

“We were talking before the race, ‘Be the hunter, not the hunted,’” Mayo said. “Keep pushing it, but still have safe starts so we don’t get DQ’ed. We all had amazing splits and got first place.”

In addition to the first place in 400 free relay, Mayo took second in the 100 free, third in the 200 individual medley and second in the 200 free relay.

“It was perfect, especially being a senior and being able to finish it with such amazing swims with such an amazing team,” Mayo said. “It really feels good and it shows that our hard work paid off.”
 

Cole said it was a remarkable performance by Mayo, particularly because Mayo had been sick during the lead-up to state.

“He really stepped up and I think being less than 100%, he swam marvelously,” Cole said.

Coming off the Mustangs’ EKL championship, Cole predicted that this year’s state championship would come down to depth and that his team would have to overcome Shawnee Mission East’s huge advantage in the diving event. Cole coached for nearly two decades at Shawnee Mission East, winning six state titles over seven seasons with the Lancers girls team between 2010 and 2016 before taking over both swim programs at Blue Valley North in 2017.

Thanks to a 48-point performance in the diving event, Shawnee Mission East sat atop the scoreboard for a long stretch of the day. For the other two frontrunners in the team race, Blue Valley North had nine points from Trey Wichman and Blue Valley Northwest did not have a diver in the finals.

Ultimately, the Mustangs would close that gap thanks to 13 different swimmers scoring points for Blue Valley North at state. Those contributions ranged from Mayo’s 33 points to sophomore Connor Golding scoring three points for finishing 14th in the 500 free.

“We had a 40-point deficit in diving, we just knew that every event, every little point mattered,” Cole said. “It’s just a credit to the kids, to just (their) perseverance, listening to the message and getting the job done.”

Munro showed a particular level of perseverance just based on the order of his events in his first experience at state. Munro swam all four of his races during the second half of the meet, including three of the last four races.

After taking fifth in the 100-yard butterfly, Munro helped lead the 200 free relay to second place and took sixth in the 100 backstroke. His grueling first experience at state was rewarded with a gold medal in the final relay, followed by a celebration with his teammates as the team champs.

“He was Ironman,” Cole said. “He basically had (top) five or six between all his races in the back end. For him to do that and swim just incredibly well is a credit to his matureness.”
 

Munro credited that matureness to his coaching and to having a great senior leader to show him how it's done.

“Mike (Mayo) has always been a role model of mine,” Munro said. “I have known him since I was eight years old in Country Club League. I knew with Rob (Cole) and Mike and all the other seniors being role models, that we could get it done.”

Munro is happy with the results, but is also looking forward to coming back next year and trying to show that he can get some gold medals in the individual events. And of course, trying to repeat as team champs.

Cole said he thinks his team is in a good position to try to accomplish just that. But he also knows that the Mustangs will receive tough competition from the same team they dethroned. 

“I think what you saw with us and Shawnee Mission East is probably a forecast to what next year’s going to look like,” Cole said. “It’s going to be a really tight meet between a couple really good teams.”