Blue Valley Northwest senior Micah Churchill has spent so much time being one of the top guys in 6A boys swimming, it’s hard to think back to a time when he was still looking up to a group of upperclassmen who finished ahead of Churchill in all the big races.

With his performance in this year’s 6A boys swimming and diving state championship meet Feb. 21-22 at Shawnee Mission School District Aquatic Center in Lenexa, Churchill concludes a four-year career to which few swimmers in state history can reasonably compare their own accolades.

Churchill won the 100-yard butterfly for the third straight year, as well as finally breaking through in the 200-yard individual medley to earn his first year of double gold in individual state events. By the time his fourth trip to state wrapped, Churchill racked up a total of five gold medals, three silver medals and a bronze. 

But to Churchill, those early mentors who he eventually surpassed are still the giants who he feels deserve a lot of credit for what he ultimately accomplished in the pool.

As a freshman, Churchill took fourth in the 100 fly behind Olathe East’s Micah Leslie, Blue Valley West’s Aidan White and Olathe South’s Logan Smith. White and Smith were both teammates of Churchill on their club team, Cool Swim Team.

White, who graduated that year, was the one who turned Churchill onto swimming the fly. Smith, who returned for his senior season in 2023, is the person actually who turned Churchill into “that guy” in the fly.

“He was the guy I was really scared of coming back (the next season),” Churchill said. “The whole next season I was just training because I wanted to beat him so bad.”

But as it turns out, Smith did not even end up competing in the 100 fly that next year. Smith took fourth in the 100 backstroke and won the B-final in the 200 free. He was also the only Falcon competing in the finals that year.

“He didn’t end up having the greatest season after that because I think he was getting a little bit tired of swim,” Churchill said of Smith, who still views as a very close friend two years after the latter graduated.

Churchill entered the 2023 state meet with close to a full-second advantage over the next best competitor in the state field for the 100 fly. He turned that into a two-second advantage over Wichita East senior Jackson Kleeman after posting a 50.50 in prelims.

Then Churchill delivered a performance in the finals that he still describes in a way that makes it sound almost as if he watched somebody else swim it. Churchill glided on the water as he raced to the wall in just 49.21 seconds.

“I don’t really know, to be honest, how I did that 49.2,” Churchill said. “When I got in that pool, I just had so much adrenaline and so many nerves. I kept stroking and stroking and stroking and I just put my power through and got that time.”

Churchill won the 100-yard butterfly for the third straight season, posting a 49.27 time in the finals. Churchill left disappointed that he was not able to shave his time down into the range of the state meet record. Newton’s David Winter holds the fastest time with his 48.58 time in 2007 while Free State’s Jordan Portela set the top 6A time with his 48.66 in 2017.

Churchill had hoped to recapture that magic at state the next year. He broke 50 once again by posting a 49.68 in prelims and setting the stage for a shot at his ultimate goal, breaking one or both of the sub-49 state records.
 

Instead, Churchill was left disappointed as a little bit of off timing when reaching the wall for turns led to some small strokes negatively impacting his time. Even as he brought home his second state title in the event, Churchill was not feeling like celebrating after his 50.59 time.

Churchill entered his senior year with the goal of not just breaking the state meet record, but reaching the low 48s during the season. He finished with two more sub-50 times, but no sub-49 or besting that 49.21 mark from his sophomore year.

Although he did not reach his goal of breaking a state record, Churchill has gained a little bit more perspective to help him not leave another tremendous state performance feeling down on himself.

“I'm just really grateful,” Churchill said. “I'm so happy that I'm gifted with the abilities and the work ethic to be able to do something like that. I thought this last gold was just really meaningful to be able to come here for three years and win it.”

He wasn’t able to get the record in the 100 fly, but Churchill did finally bring home a gold in a second individual event.

Churchill took first in the 200 IM with a time of 1:52.12 this year after twice finishing as the state runner-up in the event. His time provided him a sizable advantage over the runner-up. Maize senior Kooper Johnson took second with a time of 1:54.01.

While his 100 fly victory was expected, Churchill’s win in the 200 IM proved to be a bit of a surprise, at least heading into state.

Although he competed in the event in each of his previous three state outings, including a fifth-place finish as a freshman, Churchill decided in the offseason that he did not want to continue with the event.

“To most people who’ve ever swam the 200 IM … it kind of sucks,” Churchill said.

Churchill realized that since he’d prefer to swim in college as more of a sprinter in the fly and the free, it might be better to start that transition with his senior year of high school.

Churchill started seeing results that he liked, including when he hit sub-22 times despite neither wearing a tech suit during nor tapering in his training prior to the race.

Then at the Shawnee Mission invite, Churchill got to face off with one of the Cavin twins from Shawnee Mission Northwest. Senior Gabe and Max Cavin had locked down the top two spots in the 50 free all season. Max Cavin took first in the race at that invite with a 21.23, while Churchill finished in second with a 21.57.

“I did go best time there, which was kind of crazy because I haven’t gotten best time without a taper in a long time,” Churchill said.

But after finishing with a sizable gap between Cavin and himself, Churchill started to re-examine another one of the reasons why he was not looking at the possibility of returning to the 200 IM for his second individual event at state this year.

“‘OK, so the reason why I’m not swimming the 200 IM is because I’m really scared of Kooper Johnson’s breaststroke?” he said of his thinking at the time. 

But Churchill had just hit his best time in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:04:57 a few days before that in his team’s dual against Shawnee Mission South. That performance made Churchill think that maybe Johnson’s advantage with that particular leg of the 200 IM was not quite as large as he previously thought. In comparison, Churchill still had some ground to gain on the Cavins, in a race known for its unpredictability because of its short distance.

Churchill and Blue Valley Northwest head coach Kyle Farrington took a look at the top 25 leaderboard about a week before state, and his coach had a straightforward question for him.

“‘Why aren’t you doing the 200 IM,’” Churchill recalled Farrington asking at the time. “I was like, ‘You know what? You’re right.’ So we decided to give it a shot at state. Then I ended up dropping two seconds and winning it.”

What started as a race that he wanted to avoid due to it being an unsatisfying grind for him, Churchill ended feeling like his performance in the race was the perfect cap to his individual accomplishments at state.

“Winning that just makes you feel like you're the best swimmer at the meet overall because that's all the strokes,” Churchill said. “That one felt really, really nice to win. It was nice to finally get double gold.”

Churchill also ended up being named the Class 6A swimmer of the meet. Part of Churchill earning that award was also due to the results he had as a member on a pair of Blue Valley Northwest’s relay teams.

On both of those, Churchill competed alongside fellow senior John Christianson, who had a gold-medal performance of his own.
 

Christianson won the 100 backstroke, holding off Blue Valley West sophomore Nathan Weiner. After gaining a half-second advantage over the first 50 yards, Christianson was able to touch the wall first at 51.33. Weiner was right behind him with a 51.61.

“This is something that I’ve been looking forward to for awhile,” Christianson said. “It is just great to be able to accomplish something like this.”

Christianson’s mark was also slightly faster than Weiner’s 51.45 time from prelims, which earned him the top time heading into the finals. Christianson swam a 52.49 while  Shawnee Mission North junior Jonathan Guild finished third with his time of 53.19.

Despite being one of only two swimmers to break 53 seconds in prelims, or in the finals, Christianson was still not happy with his time.

“I was a little bit disappointed in my performance on Friday, and I was honestly a little bit angry that I came into second place,” Christianson said. 

Christianson decided to tap into that anger when he returned to the pool the next day for finals on the way to his first individual gold medal.

Christianson also utilized his anger to help his performance in the 200 free earlier in the day.
He posted a prelims time of 1:44.24, minimally improving upon his seed time which ranked second heading into state. But Blue Valley North senior Connor Golding moved past him by shaving more than two seconds of his own seed time by posting a 1:43.04.

After seeing that, Christianson pushed himself to try and match Golding’s improvement. He got close, shaving off almost exactly two seconds. Christianson’s 1:42.25 would give him second place ahead of Golding’s 1:43.62. Maize’s Zachary Rife took first in the event with 1:40.60.

Churchill and Christianson swam together on the 200 medley and 400 free relays. 

Despite both swimmers performing the same stroke as the race they would take gold in later, neither ended up posting the top time for their leg.

But once their individual races were wrapped up and they had one last swim together as Huskies, Churchill and Christianson gave everything they had in the 400 free relay.

Blue Valley Northwest entered that race with the plan of having its two state champions close out the race, including Churchill as the anchor. By the time Christianson jumped into the pool for the third leg, the Huskies were not only behind Blue Valley West by more than a second, but they were also 3.38 seconds behind Blue Valley North.
 

Despite facing a nearly impossible task, Christianson said he was actually excited for that situation.

“I love it when I'm behind and I can make it back,” Christianson said. “I feel like I swim my best when I'm hawking someone down in a race. I was excited to get in there and I was excited to swim fast and make it back.”

Christianson touched the wall with a split of 46.63 to get his anchor within a second of the Jaguars. Churchill caught up with them by the end of his first 50. He ended up reaching the wall with the fastest split of any swimmer in the race at 45.63, but was not quite fast enough to catch up with the Mustangs. Blue Valley North won the race with a 3:11.29 while Blue Valley Northwest took second with a 3:12.53.

“Even though the guy was still pretty far ahead of me, I ended up being at his hips, I think, at the end,” Churchill said. “Just from EKL, I knew that we had a really good chance at state to win that, but we were just a little short. 

“But we did end up catching a few guys, so I was really happy with that.”

For as much as Christianson enjoyed his chance to chase down a pair of top swimmers in his leg, he also had a nearly equal enjoyment of watching his teammate do the same after Christianson touched the wall.

“It's always amazing to see how much we can take from the lead and make it back in there,” Christianson said. “Watching Micah get close to that first place, we always want first place, and it’s super exciting to watch him swim.”

While this moment will put a cap on their high school swim careers, these two Huskies are not done as teammates just yet.

Churchill and Christianson will both join the Drury University men’s swimming and diving team in the fall. 

Christianson was the first to connect with school, taking a look at swimming for that program.

“My mom graduated there and she always talked about them having a great swim program,” Christianson said. “It was always in the back of the mind. Then last year when I figured out that I could start reaching out to colleges and get recruited, they were the first college that I was like, ‘OK, let me try it out and see if I can get something back from them.’ The coach immediately responded and I was just always super interested in going there.”

Christianson said that Drury remained his first option throughout his recruiting process. Before he had committed, Churchill took his own visit to Springfield, Missouri, to see the Drury campus and check out the program.

After liking what that school had to offer, Churchill decided he needed to talk with Christianson and make sure it was not a problem if Churchill picked the same school.

“I just sat down with him and I said, ‘Hey, are you good if I go to the same college as you,’” Churchill said of their conversation. “‘Because I think we practice together really well and I think that would be a really good experience.”

Christianson’s response: “Yeah, let’s do it.”

Both swimmers will stay in the water for another month racing for their club teams, culminating in USA Swimming’s Speedo Sectionals March 13-16 in Columbia, Missouri. After that, Churchill and Christianson will both be taking a month off, a well-deserved break before they return to the pool and prepare for their first semester of college.
 

 
MAIZE’S RIFE MAKES MODERATE RISK PAY OFF WITH SWEEP 100, 200 FREESTYLE TITLES
 
Zach Rife rolled the dice a little bit when he made his decision on which of his individual events he was going to swim at this year’s state meet.
 
Sure, he was basically sticking with what worked pretty well for him as a sophomore a year ago when he finished third in both the 100 and 200 freestyles.
 
But while choosing to return in the 200 freestyle was a pretty easy decision given he was far and away the Class 6A leader in the event this year with a season-best of 1:41.11 during the regular season, the choice to return in the 100 was a little more difficult.
 
In doing so, he was giving up potentially another sure thing by not swimming the 500 freestyle where his season-best of 4:41.29 was more than five and a half seconds faster than Olathe West’s Hayden Renoux’s 4:46.99.
 
Granted, he did go into state as the top seed in the 100, but the margin was a slim one with his best of 47.27 just .04 seconds ahead of Shawne Mission North’s Zak Kohoutek and one of six swimmers in the 47-second range.
 
“I definitely felt more confident in the 200,” Rife said. “That’s more my strong suit, middle to longer distances. I knew in the 100s, there were guys right there and I was going to have to have a good race.”
 
Rife answered the call and made the moderate risk pay off. After cruising to win by more than a second and a half in the 200 freestyle to secure the first state title of his career, Rife powered his way to the state title in the 100 freestyle as well.
 
He became Maize’s first individual state champion since Preston Barley won the Class 5-1A 200 freestyle title in 2016. Rife also joined Lucas Popp as the lone double-gold winners at a state meet with Popp sweeping the 50 and 100 freestyle titles in Class 5-1A in 2012 and 2013.
 
“We’ve had a lot of great swimmers here, but haven’t gotten a lot of first-places,” Rife said. “I’m happy we have the team we do that pushes me and it’s not just me but Kooper (Johnson), Kellen (Doty) and Coach Tedd (Gibson). It’s everyone on the team helping me get on top of that podium.”
 

Rife turned in the top qualifying time in both the 100 and 200 on Friday, going career-best times in both with a 1:40.02 in the 200 and a 46.93 in the 100. The latter was only .08 seconds ahead of Shawnee Mission Northwest’s Gabe Cavin, who turned in a 47.01.
 
The 100 freestyle field lost a top contender with Kohoutek was disqualified in preliminaries. But Cavin was going to be every bit as formidable of a challenger, particularly after he knocked off twin brother Max to win the state championship in the 50 freestyle earlier in the meet.
 
With Rife more of a distance specialist and Cavin more of a sprinter, their showdown in the finals was a juxtaposition in strategy. Cavin’s goal was to build as big of a lead over the first 50 of the race while Rife was hoping to stay in close enough contact to allow his closing strength to come into play.
 
“I knew it would take a great first half to stay with him and then hope I can beat him on the second half,” Rife said. “He won the 50 and did amazing. In prelims, he out-splitted my in the first 50; I out-splitted him in the second 50. I just needed to do the same in finals I did in prelims.”
 
That’s exactly how things played out. Cavin got out fast in the first 50 to build a slight lead on Rife, who was able do what he needed to do and maintain close enough contact. Still just behind Cavin going to the final turn, Rife powered off the wall and showed off his closing speed to blow past Cavin to win in 46.10, a surprising .89 faster than Cavin’s runner-up 46.99 time.
 
“I ended up doing just what I needed to do and I’m proud of that,” he said. “He was going to haul it that first 50 and if I could stay with him, I’ve always been a back-half swimmer and I could beat him on the final push.
 
“That meant a lot especially because it could have gone either way. We could race that again and I’m not sure I’d win the second one. For me to come out on top, knowing how hard I trained for that, I’m happy.”
 
The 200 freestyle final could be raced about as many times as you want and the outcome likely wasn’t going to change. Though Rife didn’t quite go as fast as he did in prelims, his 1:40.60 was easily good enough to earn him his first state title with Blue Valley Northwest’s John Christianson, the 100 backstroke state champion, runner-up in 1:42.25.
 
While Rife was able to get his gold medal sweep of his individual events, fellow Eagle gold hopeful Kooper Johnson came up short in his bid to do the same.
 
Johnson had qualified first in the 500 freestyle on Friday, but saw Olathe West’s Hayden Renoux come back with a career-best race in Saturday’s finals and deny him the crown. Renoux closed the event with a kick and won in 4:42.46, just over a second ahead of Johnson who finished second in a career-best 4:43.51.
 
Johnson also took second in the 200 individual medley to Blue Valley Northwest’s Micah Churchill, who went 1:52.12 to win by nearly two seconds over Johnson’s 1:54.01.
 
Rife and Johnson helped Maize to a sixth-place finish in the 200 freestyle relay and eighth-place finish in the 200 medley relay, joined on both relays by Kellen Doty and by Landon Brungardt on the medley relay and Dustyn Schmidt on the freestyle relay.
 

SHAWNEE MISSION EAST REPEATS AS 200 FREE RELAY CHAMPS, AS LANCERS EARNS 3RD STRAIGHT STATE RUNNER-UP FINISH For the second straight year, Shawnee Mission East senior Jack McClelland anchored the Lancers’ 200-yard freestyle relay team.

And for the second straight year, McClelland and his teammates took first in that race.

Although the results were the same, almost everything except for having McClelland closing out the victory was different this year.

For one, all three of McClelland’s teammates in the finals of that relay in 2024 graduated last May.

The Lancers rolled out anybody from fellow seniors to fresh-faced freshmen to join McClelland on this year’s 200 free relay.

Those changes continued up to and through the state meet.

Meanwhile, Shawnee Mission Northwest sat atop the leaderboard for the event from the start of the season and stayed there until the finals race at state.

With the Cavin twins leading the way, Shawnee Mission Northwest’s 200 free relay had been undefeated heading into state. It did not look like that would change after the Cougars posted the top seed time in prelims with a 1:26.77.

It would be up to another team to step and really cut their time to push for the top spot in this race. That team ended up being McClelland and his new crew defending the Lancers’ crown.

To do that, Shawnee Mission East decided to swap in freshman Chase Kvapil for senior Carson Graves in the finals, a move that the team also made for the 400 free relay.

Senior Cooper Kearns opened the race with a 22.08. Kvapil posted a 21.31 for the second leg, providing a cut of 1.08 seconds of the 1.98 seconds dropped in the finals. Junior Luke Sinatra clocked a 21.68 for the third leg. When McClelland touched the wall with a 21.03 split on his anchor leg, the Lancers finished posting a time of 1:26.10 to win the race. 

McClelland, Kearns and Sinatra were all able to improve their times from prelims to the finals in that race. With those performances, the Lancers were able to narrowly hold off a couple teams a split-second behind. Shawnee Mission Northwest took second with 1:26.51, followed by Blue Valley North in third at 1:26.84.

Although the Lancers needed to make those last minute changes, the team had no concern about the chemistry of the relay squads in the finals.

McClelland said the Lancers’ coaching staff does a great job of preparing all their swimmers for being ready to switch guys out on relays.

“We try to standardize it just throughout the team,” McClelland said. “When you’re finishing at the end of the wall, you got to finish strong so you don’t make your next guy false start.”

With that team committed to that, they can focus more on fast starts, which still ended up being the only thing McClelland saw as something they could have done better in the gold-medal performance.

“That’s one of the things we really didn’t do that well during that race,” McClelland said. “We had two guys who had slower starts, but other than that, I don’t know how it could have gone any better.”

In the 400 free, Shawnee Mission East also swapped in Barrett Tegtmeier and Emmet Lynch after Cole Person and Kearns swam in the prelims. The team’s change in the 400 free also helped play a role in the Lancers dropping 3.08 seconds in that relay.

But with each of the four teams that finished ahead of them in prelims also delivered sizable cuts to their times, the Lancers landed in fifth in the race once again.

With that result, McClelland earned his sixth top-4 state finish as a member of a relay team. he did not quite match that as an individual swimmer, but he got close as he reached the finals six times.

McClelland raced in the 500 free in each of the previous three state outings, including his best individual state finish when he took state runner-up in that event as a sophomore. But after going from the 200 to 50 free for his second event last year, McClelland was excited about finally getting to focus on sprints for both of his events.

“This year was the first year I got to swim the 100 at state, so that was cool because I've never gotten to do that,” McClelland said.

McClelland had his best individual finish this year with that race, taking fifth with his time of 47.85. He also finished sixth in the 200 with a time of 1:45.53. Although his position slipped a few spots each of those events, McClelland said he’s never been one to let individual results have an oversized impact on his mood.

“I wasn't disappointed dropping a few places,” McClelland said. “It's all right, it's not that big of a deal. It's just high school swimming. But I don't know, it was still fun, man.”

Shawnee Mission East finished as the state runner-up with 263 points, behind only the 302 points from Blue Valley North. This is the third straight year the Lancers have finished second behind the Mustangs after winning the 6A state title in 2022.

“If you told me going in that we would get second, I don't know if I would've believed you,” McClelland said. “I think just the fact that we did what we did with what we had was the most impressive thing.”
 

  
HE’S GOT THE POWER: OLATHE WEST’S RENOUX COMES BACK FOR 500 FREESTYLE TITLE
 
Truth be told, Hayden Renoux was a little bummed out by his 500 freestyle preliminary swim on Friday.
 
It wasn’t necessarily because his qualifying time of 4:50.86 was more than three seconds slower than his regular-season best of 4:46.99. The Olathe West junior wasn’t concerned so much about how fast he went in relation to what it meant he could do in Saturday’s finals.
 
What did somewhat bother him was that he wasn’t necessarily trying to hold back and save himself for the finals. Instead, he admitted that he really would have preferred to have earned the top seed for finals, which instead was claimed by Maize senior Kooper Johnson, who won his heat with a prelim-best time of 4:45.06.
 
And it wasn’t about having Lane 4.
 
“I wanted that walk-out song,” Renoux said about picking the tune that plays as swimmers walk out onto the deck for the championship finals.
 
Renoux said his song of choice would have been “Power” by Kanye West. And though he didn’t get to head to the blocks with it blaring out of the Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center’s speakers, what transpired afterwards was even sweeter music to his ears.
 
Sitting second behind Johnson for the first half of the race, Renoux slowly began eliminating the gap and then opened up a lead of his own, powering his way to his first state championship. Runner-up in the event at state a year ago as a sophomore, Renoux wasn’t going to be denied this year.
 
He shaved a whopping eight seconds off his prelim time, posting a career-best of 4:42.46 to pull away from Johnson and win by just over a second.
 
“I still came into finals pretty confident,” Renoux said. “I knew I still had a lot left in the tank.”
 
He had hoped to empty some of that tank on Friday, but expended too much early in the race and wasn’t able to finish as strong as he typically does. Instead of being too eager to going after that top seed, Renoux said it was the opposite.
 
“I felt a little too calm and I feel like I race better when I am amped up and a little nervous,” he said. “I think that’s why I did better today in both of my races. I had that adrenaline going and was just more excited.”
 

Renoux’s showing at state somewhat mirrored his regular season. Coming off a cross country season that finished with a tinge of disappointment as he and his Owl teammates fell short of a top-three team finish, as well as a minor hip injury that slowed his training.
 
The first half of the season, his times were slower than a year ago and he was frustrated.
 
But he stayed the course and at the Shawnee Mission Invitational in late January, turned in a 4:51.71 that placed him second to Lansing’s Zach Mendez, who obliterated the Class 5-1A state meet record on Friday with a 4:23.97.
 
“I just had to keep trusting the process, trust my coaches,” Renoux said. “After that meet, I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got this.’”
 
Renoux improved on that time to a 4:46.99 which ranked him second in Class 6A on the final Top 25 list. But it wasn’t to Johnson, who was third with a season-best of 4:48.86. Instead, it was Johnson’s teammate, Zachary Rife, who had gone 4:41.29 in late January.
 
Wary of both, Renoux saw Rife opt to swim the 100 and 200 freestyles at state, leaving Johnson as his top challenger for the title on Saturday, especially after the Eagle standout knocked nearly four seconds off his previous season best.
 
“I knew Kooper had gone a 4:42 in club so I was expecting him to bring it,” Renoux said. “I knew I was going to have to go a best time if I was going to beat him.”
 
In taking second a year ago, Renoux saw Washburn Rural senior Jack Miranda enjoy a career day as he bolted to a quick lead and left Renoux and the field in his wake in winning by five and a half seconds in 4:43.71.
 
“Nobody was touching Jack that day,” Renoux said. “I saw him go out that first 100 and it was like, ‘Well, I’m just going to go for a best time.’”
 
But after the race, Miranda had a message for his Owl rival.
 
“He told me, ‘Go win this for me next year,’” Renoux said.
 
With Johnson in a similar position as Miranda was a year ago with the 500 final the last individual race of his career, history had a shot of repeating itself. Particularly when Johnson shot out to a quick lead and built it to a full second through the first 150 yards.
 
But Renoux quickly closed the gap and when they made the turn at 200, they were dead even. Renoux poured it on from there and steadily pulled away from Johnson to win by just over a second in his career-best by four seconds, 4:42.46 with Johnson second in 4:43.51.
 
Though Renoux knew that was how the race could play out, Johnson’s showing in prelims did give him some cause for concern.
 
“I knew it was going to be a race and I was going to have to earn it, so whatever happens, happens and I kind of embraced that today,” Renoux said. “I let him get ahead of me and just stayed with him and trusted my endurance and strength to carry me through the back half of that race. 
 
“I saw yesterday that (Johnson) closed in a 27 so coming in to today I knew that even if I had the lead, it had to be a body length or so if I wanted to truly win it. I didn’t save anything back.
 
“Now I know what it feel like and know what needs to be done to be a state champion. That takes some of the pressure off and will allow me to come back and do it again next year.” 
 
Renoux also finished fourth in the 200 freestyle, an event Maize’s Rife dominated with his winning time of 1:40.60. Renoux finished in 1:44.75, a season best by a second over his prelim time of 1:45.79 on Friday.
 

SHAWNEE MISSION NORTHWEST’S GABE CAVIN WINS BROTHER BATTLE IN 50 FREE AGAINST TWIN MAX CAVIN

Shawnee Mission Northwest seniors Gabe and Max Cavin knew they were going to have one final showdown at this year’s state meet, and in the twins’ premiere event.

The Cavins held down the 1-2 spot on the state top 25 list for the 50 free all season. During their junior campaign, it was Gabe who had finished with the top time each time they raced each other in this event, until Max got the edge in the state prelims. Gabe would reclaim the top spot in the finals, earning a fourth-place finish with his time of 21.75. Max took fourth with his 21.78.

But it would be Max who delivered the top seed time in the 50 free heading into state with his season-best time of 21.18. Gabe was right behind him with a 21.28. Both times would have easily earned the gold in last year’s state meet.

In this year’s finals for the 50 free, it would be Gabe not only winning their head-to-head, but also winning a state title in the event. Gabe took first with a time of 21.02. 

“It’s a great feeling to finish first in the 50 free in my senior year,” Gabe said. “I mean, that's the best feeling I could have imagined.”

The only thing that could have made it better for him was if his brother joined him in delivering that one-two finish that they had hoped for. Instead, Lawrence senior Ryan Lane posted a 21.21 to finish second ahead of the 21.22 time for Max in third.

Max was not hoping head finish with a time closer to his brother, and without another swimmer sitting between them on the leaderboard, but he was still very happy to see Gabe win the race.

“Gabe had me last year, all year,” Max said. “This year, I had him all year. One bad race for me, just happened to be at a bad time. But no, this year has been so good. We've been so close on the 50 free all year and it’s just been amazing.”
 

Although the Cavins enjoy competing against each other in the 50 free, they also made sure that they were in different races for each’s second individual event.

“We purposely do different events,” Max said. “I had to make that decision whether to do the 100 free or the 100 fly, and I chose the 100 fly so we could each have our own event.”

Gabe said that as much as enjoys how he and Max get to push each other in the 50 free, that different choice on the second event helps both of them get the chance to try and lead a race without having to think about that one big drawback that comes with facing each other in the pool.

“It's a weird feeling because I don't wanna hold back, but I also feel a little bit bad at the same time, if I'm winning,” Gabe said. “But I know I can't hold back at all. I have to go out as hard as I can.”

Gabe would end up also finishing with the better result in his other individual event. He took second in the 100 free with his time of 47.01, right behind Maize senior Zachary Rife at 46.93. Max would take third in the 100 butterfly with his time of 52.14.

The Cavins would finally get to work together in the 200 free relay. Although they improved on their prelims time, the Cougars took second in the race. Shawnee Mission East made a few changes to their line-up on the way to posting a 1:26.10 to take first. Shawnee Mission Northwest delivered a time of 1:26.51, holding off third-place Blue Valley North at 1:26.84.

The Cavins were also members of the Cougars’ 400 free relay team, which finished sixth with a time of 3:19.08.

“Getting second in the 200 free relay, that hurt a little bit,” Gabe said. “But we got the school record again, so that helps. Overall it was pretty good.”
 

WICHITA NORTHWEST’S BENOIT FIGHTS OFF TOUGH 6A DIVING FIELD FOR SECOND STRAIGHT TITLE
 
No sooner had the last diver entered the pool during Saturday’s Class 6A state diving finals, Giani Benoit walked over to his Wichita Northwest coaches and said two simple words.
 
“Business finished.”
 
The business at hand was defending the Class 6A state championship Benoit won last February when he edged Shawnee Mission East’s Peter Stechschulte by a mere three points for his first state championship. There was no such drama this season as Benoit posted a career-best score of 475.90 to win by more than 50 points over Olathe East’s Ellis Malone.
 
As tough as capturing that title was, pulling off a repeat this year looked like it might be an even bigger challenge. Even in having a better – albeit abbreviated – regular season, Benoit didn’t necessarily go into the state tournament as the favorite despite being the defending champion.
 
That distinction instead belonged to Campus senior Kenton Holmes, who posted the highest 11-dive score in the state during the regular season with a 477.65, 6.55 ahead of Benoit’s season best of 471.10.
 
Holmes finished just 10th at state a year ago, but made leaps and bounds this year -- something Benoit witnessed first hand as the two trained together during the offseason. Possessing a similar trampoline background as Benoit had before he decided to take up diving, Holmes became more acclimated to some of the nuances of the sport after going to camps last summer, namely adding head-first dives to his repertoire.
 
Benoit recalled how much that escalated his scoring and saw a noticeable difference in Holmes when they worked out before the season.
 
“That’s my buddy,” Benoit said of Holmes. “He’s a hard worker, I’ll give him that. He’s coming up for sure and I was definitely surprised. But it’s good to have that competition from the Wichita area and see guys from down there up on the podium with me.”
 
Benoit had planned to see some of the best competition that state had to offer at the Shawnee Mission in late January – a meet that brought together the likes of Malone, who was third at state last year, two-time defending Class 5-1A champion Alex Moeller of St. Thomas Aquinas, this season’s 5-1A state leader Jasen Grammer of De Soto as well as Holmes, just to name a few.
   
But a week before the meet, he was working on a reverse one-and-a-half in practice and kneed himself in the face, suffering a concussion. The injury forced Benoit not only to miss the big Shawnee Mission meet, but knocked him out of competition for almost three weeks.
 
The injury made Benoit change his plans to alter his dive sheet with some more difficult dives, and instead stick with the repertoire that earned him the state title a year ago.
 
“I didn’t feel like I could hit the dives as well as the ones I competed with today,” he said. “I still did that reverse one-and-a-half, but I was going to add a reverse two-and-a-half. But I didn’t want to risk messing anything up two weeks before state.”
 

 
After having to come from behind to beat Stechschulte, whom he trailed through preliminaries and semifinals a year ago, Benoit took control of this year’s meet right away. He finished his first eight dives with a score of 333.15, giving him a 35.9-point lead over Shawnee Mission North’s Jack Eaton, who posted a 297.25. Holmes sat third at 295.60.
 
“I knew there was more competition and people I’d have to compete against,” Benoit said. “I just knew I had to do what I do, hit my dives like I normally do and everything would be good.”
 
With a sizable cushion going into finals, Benoit was able to be free of mind with his final three dives, starting with his favorite dive – a forward one-and-a-half with a double twist. He executed it flawlessly, drawing scores between seven and eight from the judges and posting a overall score of 58.5 points for the dive that all but clinched the victory.
 
And Benoit knew it when he entered the water.
 
“I definitely let a nice yell out under the water,” said Benoit, who drew at least one eight from a judge on eight of his 11 dives overall. “I had a good idea I’d won it. That’s my favorite dive. There’s just so much to do in the air and then you come out, it’s just a fun dive.”
 
Nobody could close the gap. Malone finished with a strong three-dive showing in finals to jump from sixth after the semifinals into the runner-up spot with 425.25 points, 50.65 behind Benoit’s winning total of 475.90, which was 20 more than he scored in winning a year ago. Eaton slipped to third at 420.25 while Holmes took fourth (413.40) and Olathe Northwest’s Braden Zimmerman was fifth (412.00).
 

 
The title defense was sweet for Benoit, who plans to dive collegiately at Cleveland State.
 
“It’s great,” he said. “I couldn’t think of any better way to finish it. There was definitely a little pressure knowing you have to defend your title. But I was confident. Confidence is the key. Trust in your ability, trust in your coaching and everything will work out.
 
“I feel like I dive better when the pressure is on. It makes me do good.”
  

OLATHE EAST KEEPS ITS BEST 200 MEDLEY RELAY GROUP OFF RADAR BEFORE GOLD-MEDAL DEBUT AT STATE

Olathe East waited until the Sunflower League championship meet on Feb. 7-8 to pull out its best performance in the 200-yard medley relay to that point in the season.

The Hawks took first with a time of 1:40.26, edging out Shawnee Mission East at 1:40.62.

Although this performance gave the Hawks some momentum heading into state, it hardly put the other top 6A teams on notice.

Three teams entered state with a better mark from this season, including Blue Valley North holding the top time in the state at 1:37.27.

But Olathe East had also not actually shown their full hand with that league title performance.

When the Hawks reached the showdown at state, they finally showed that they had actually stacked the pool deck.

Olathe East would ultimately shave off 3.78 seconds off their seed time as the Hawks posted a 1:36.48 to win the finals. This is the fourth time in the last seven years that Olathe East has won this event at state, with the Hawks earning at least top three in the other three years.

This year's team spent much of this season experimenting with different line-ups for the 200 free relay, despite knowing early on that the quartet of sophomore Corbin Bradwell and seniors Adam Hagan, Charlie Ross and Skylar Jones would likely be the choices for that relay at state.

Although they did not race in a meet this season until state, they worked on the relay together in practice quite a bit.

Bradwell, Jones, and Hagan also swam the race together at league with senior Cole Stephens.

Hagan already had experience winning gold on a relay team. The Hawks took first with him on the 200 free relay during his sophomore year in 2023. 

Olathe East had nearly the same group for last year’s 200 medley relay, which took third. As a freshman Bradwell swam the lead-off 50 back while then-senior Yowen Hwang had the breaststroke, followed by Hagan on the butterfly and Ross finishing things off with the freestyle.

With the team needing to replace Hwang, Jones knew it would be key for him to really focus on improving his breaststroke technique so he could jump into this event.

“I knew they would just mesh together, but it was gonna be mainly on me,” Jones said. 

Jones, who describes himself as using more of pole motion than a paddle motion, finds that he performs better in breaststroke or butterfly, but has never really had one stroke that he excels at.

He had his best individual state performance last year in the 200 free, where he finished 19th. This year, he decided to drop both that race and the 100 fly in favor of racing the 200 IM and the 100 breaststroke.

“I've been the most comfortable with the 200 I am only because I've always swam that during club in high school throughout all four years,” Jones said. “Breaststroke was just more of an add-on this year since I've been training so much and focusing on it so much. 

Jones also figured that since he was already training for the breaststroke for the relay, and with the 100 breaststroke being at the tail end of the state meet, that it made sense to go for that one.

He ended up finishing seventh in the 100 breaststroke, posting a 1:02.23.

Ross, Hagan and Bradwell teamed up again for the 400 free relay to close out the state meet. With senior Greyson Sayers swimming the lead-off leg, the Hawks took fourth with a time of 3:15.69.

While their relay teams showed a lot of speed in the pool, it was nothing like the speed shown by Bradwell to exit the venue after the 400 free relay was completed.

Bradwell’s mother, who was also serving as a timekeeper on one of the lanes, immediately took off to get her vehicle and swung around to pick up her son up at the door. Bradwell had a 2:45 start time for his state piano performance in Wichita.

With a little bit of flexibility from the officials at state piano, and possibly some flexibility on following the speed limit en route to Wichita State University’s Henrion Hall, the Bradwells were to arrive in time for the performance.

“We were able to make it,” Bradwell said. “I was really happy. I went in and walked up on stage,  warmed up a little bit on the piano. I was just like, ‘I’m going to just have fun playing on the piano.’”

Bradwell was a little surprised later on when he got the results back. He scored Division I rating, which is the top given out for the event. He becomes just the 18th different Olathe East performer to earn that accolade, and the first since 2021 when both Caleb Hernandez and Julia Sibson achieved that.
 

BLUE VALLEY’S MAINELLI CHANGES COURSE AS A SENIOR, WINS 100 BREASTSTROKE

Back during the Eastern Kansas League championship meet, Blue Valley senior Lincoln Mainelli achieved something that has been fairly rare for his program in recent years.

Mainelli took first in the 100-yard breaststroke, delivering his season-best time with a 1:00.38. He bested a field that even included the reigning 6A champ in that event.

Blue Valley head coach Adam Bien placed his gold medal on his neck and he reached the top of the awards podium. At some point after coming back down, Bien had to let Mainelli know how excited he was by the site.

“He told me, ‘I don’t get to do this a whole lot, but it’s pretty cool to see you there at first place’” Mainelli said of the conversation.

If that was a rare moment for Bien, it’s easy to imagine how monumental it would be for him to get the same chance to see Mainelli in the same spot at state a few weeks later.

“I think the last time that the Tigers were up there might have been when we won state back in 2011,” Mainelli said. 

Mainelli would deliver just that chance for Bien at state. He would win the 100 breaststroke with a time of 58.68.

One problem though: Bien ended up missing that moment.

“My assistant coach had to deal out the medals because (Bien) was off somewhere else,” Mainelli said.

That didn’t stop Mainelli from enjoying his trip up to the top of the podium.

“It was a really cool experience,” Mainelli said. “It was a good way to end the season and my four years in high school.”

Mainelli even surprised himself with the result. For the last three years, Mainelli has competed in the 100 backstroke and 200 IM. At last year’s state meet, he took fifth in both.

While switching the 100 back for the 100 breaststroke clearly worked out with his state victory, Mainelli also credits his early setbacks in those events with his future success at state.

When Mainelli was a freshman, he finished 13th in the 100 back and 15th in the 200 IM during his first state outing. He ended up winning the B-final in the 100 back the next year, along with an 11th-place finish in the 200 IM.

Mainelli started the 2023 state meet with a slow time in his 200 IM race, adding more than two seconds from the time he posted a few weeks before at his league meet.

“I was down in my emotions and I didn’t swim to what I could have,” Mainelli said. “I didn’t put it behind me.”

Mainelli ended up swimming slower in the 100 back as well, posting a second slower for that race.

While his seed time in the 200 IM projected him to be on the bubble of advancing to the A-final in that race, his seed time in the 100 back had him looking to be in the middle of the pack for A-final. Instead, Mainelli ended up in the B-final for both events.

He ended up posting almost the exact same time in the 200 IM final while finally shaking off the rough outings to at last deliver close to his seed time in his other race. Mainelli won the B-final of the 100 back with his time 54.81.

Mainelli felt a little deja vu at state last year. After finally cracking 2:00 in the 200 IM with his time of 1:59.62 at league, he posted a 2:02.00 in prelims. In the 100 back, Mainelli’s seed time slipped by 1.29 seconds.

However, Mainelli still made the A-final in both events.

Mainelli didn’t want to have the same feeling of disappointment during the final day of state. 

Not only was he able to shake it off, Mainelli ended up posting a 1:58.92 in the finals of the 200 IM, earning a fourth-place finish and improving his PR by 0.70 seconds.

He wasn’t able to quite do the same in the 100 back, but his 54.09 time in the finals did move him up a spot for a fifth-place finish.

Despite originally having better results in the 100 back, it ended up being the 200 IM where Mainelli saw his confidence grow each year, which is part of why it became the race he stuck with through all four seasons. Instead, the 100 back was out and the 100 breaststroke was in for Mainelli.

“I switched up and I wasn't actually expecting to get as far as I did,” Mainelli said. “But it was pretty exciting, especially to do that as a senior.”

If there was one thing about his switch in events leading to a gold-medal performance that did not read like a storybook ending, it was that his victory had to come at the expense of somebody else’s epic story of triumph.
 

Although he earned won at the league meet, and in a race that would ultimately involved the top three finishers in this event at state, Mainelli did not enter state with top-ranked seed time.

That mark was held by Blue Valley West senior Jack Punswick, who was also the reigning state champion in the event.

Before clinching that top mark, Punswick had been diagnosed with cancer back in September. He decided that he would continue training for the season, even as he received weekly chemotherapy treatment through the first month of the swim season.

Mainelli said it weighed on him a bit going up against Punswick, knowing his story and all the hard work he put in over the last six months to combat his cancer.

“That was definitely something that was affecting me and my nerves going into it,” Mainelli said. “I've known Jack ever since he joined club. He joined COOL (Swim Team) at the end of his sophomore year, and that was his first time joining club

“I saw him rise and go win that state championship last year. I've spent a lot of time with him as he went through his cancer diagnosis, and I was practicing with him when he was going through chemo, and he was just always working so hard.”

Mainelli said it was much different having the swimmer in second trying to chase you down be a friend rather than someone who you’re not too familiar with outside of competition.

“I've spent a lot of time with him and he is an amazing guy,” Mainelli said. “It just was in the back of my mind. But I was happy he was able to go at 59 as well, and he was super chill about it.”

Although Punswick entered state with the best seed time in the 100 breaststroke, Mainelli finished first in prelims with 59.22. Punswick was right behind him with a time of 59.63.

In the finals, Mainelli was able to push his time down to 58.68 to finish first. Punswick had his time slip to 59.63, but he still finished second as no other swimmers in their race were able to crack 60 seconds. Derby senior Ayden McFarren took third with 1:00.60.

For Mainelli’s other individual event, he took sixth in the prelims for the 200 individual medley with a time of 1:59.53. He cut that down to 1:58.63 and moved past Olathe East senior Adam Hagan to take fifth in the event.

Mainelli was also a member of Blue Valley’s 200 medley relay and 200 free relay teams. 

Mainelli, junior Jace Jones, freshman Ryan Marinov and junior Ben Kim won the B-final of the 200 medley relay to take ninth with a 1:40.65. Mainelli, senior Zach Spence, Marinov and Jones took 10th in the 200 free relay with a time of 1:31.42. 

As much as Mainelli was proud of his individual results, he was also proud of how both of those relay teams finished strong to improve upon their time from prelims.

Both of those relays competed in the B-finals, and still all his teammates showed that same strong mindset he had to gain following his state struggles as an underclassmen.

Mainelli said he knows swimming is a tough sport where that could have easily not been the case. He knows swimming is a hard sport. He said Coach Bien reminds them of that all the time.

“We practice super early in the morning at 5:30 and we practice 10 times a week,” Mainelli said. 
“It’s going to be hard and it’s a winter sport, so it’s always cold and your skin’s always dry.

“There's gonna be times where it's like, ‘what is even the point?’ But I was lucky enough to where Blue Valley is a pretty small team, I am able to get to know all the guys really, really well and it's helped me to connect with a lot of guys who I probably would never talk to or met in my life. It makes me look forward to coming to practice and doing these events.”

Mainelli would not always enjoy all the practices he had with his club team over the summer and fall, but he never really felt that way about his practices with his high school team.

“I'm doing all the club practices that I'm like, ‘I have high school to look forward to,’” Mainelli said. “That was always an emphasis that I put with my teammates, ‘I get to look forward to this.’”



ALL-STATE TEAMS
 
FIRST TEAM
 
Giani Benoit, sr., Wichita Northwest; Gabe Cavin, sr., Shawnee Mission Northwest; Max Cavin, sr., Shawnee Mission Northwest; John Christianson, sr., Blue Valley Northwest; Micah Churchill, sr., Blue Valley Northwest; Kooper Johnson, sr., Maize; Ryan Lane, sr., Lawrence; Lincoln Mainelli, sr., Blue Valley; Colton Poe, jr., Blue Valley West; Hayden Renoux, jr., Olathe West; Zachary Rife, jr., Maize; Nathan Weiner, so., Blue Valley West.
 
SECOND TEAM
 
Bryan Branstrom, jr., Olathe Northwest; Khasar Chabat, jr., Blue Valley North; Connor Golding, sr., Blue Valley North; Jonathan Guild, sr., Shawnee Mission North; Emmett Lynch, so., Shawnee Mission East; Ellis Malone, jr., Olathe East; Jack McClelland, sr., Shawnee Mission East; Jack Munro, jr., Blue Valley North; Harry Parisi, sr., Blue Valley North; Jack Punswick, sr., Blue Valley West; Wilson Riekhof, sr., Blue Valley North; Sam Richardson, jr., Shawnee Mission West.
 
Swimmer of the meet – Micah Churchill, Blue Valley Northwest
 
Coach of the year – Jimmy Adams, Derby