Anyone trying to track down a member of the Andover swim team at Saturday’s Class 5-1A state championship meet at the Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center didn’t have to search that hard.
 
The Trojans were easily identifiable, patrolling the deck in matching St. Patrick’s Day-inspired cowboy hats.
 
Which begged the question. Were the Trojans hoping to draw a little “Luck of the Irish” from their headgear in their pursuit of a third straight Class 5-1A team championship?
 
“We were at Wal-Mart and saw them and figured it would be a good idea to have something to bring the team together,” Andover sophomore Clark Young said of a shopping trip only hours before the meet that yielded the shamrock-covered hats. “(The shamrocks were) pretty coincidence.”
 
Turns out, the Trojans really didn’t need any extra luck in going after their three-peat. Bolstered by the largest contingent of swimmers in the Class 5-1A field with 16 qualifiers, Andover rode that depth to another dominating title.
 
The Trojans weren’t quite able to reach last year’s sizable total of 374 points – the second-highest total ever scored in Class 5-1A behind Blue Valley’s 381 total in 2011 – but their final total of 318 points gave them nearly the same margin of victory as a year ago with Kapaun Mt. Carmel finishing 108 points behind in second place with 210 points.
 
“We had some really good, deep talent,” Andover coach Kelsie Biebighauser said. “The theme throughout our whole season, with the boys when they’d give their pep talks, it was, ‘You need to go out and you know what you need to do and you need to do what you need to do.’ And they were focused on their individual races.
 
“Everyone on our team made it back to finals and just kept stepping up. They wanted it again.”
 

 
While Andover certainly showed off its depth in winning its second straight state title a year ago, they also had the showstoppers to add a little flair to the championship. The Trojans finished 1-2 in the 100 freestyle with Eli Conard beating teammate Ian Diefenbach for the title and the duo coming back to help lead the 200 and 400 freestyle relays to state championships as well.
 
With that duo graduating along with four other seniors, including relay champion and double individual placer David Gott and fellow double individual placer Luke Neugent, the Trojans had some pretty big holes to fill. The void grew even larger when double state placer Eric Witt opted not to return for his junior season.
 
In all, the Trojans had to replace 156 of the 211 points they scored in individual events a year ago and only returned one member off each of their three state-placing relays.
 
“We lost some great guys,” said Young, who was Andover’s top returning point producer this season after a runner-up finish in the 500 freestyle and fifth in the 100 breaststroke last year as a freshman. “It was really just getting this team together, putting in the work and showing that all of our practices paid off for everyone. All the people that we had, it’s proof that our camaraderie is really strong. It pushes the newcomers to be even better and the other guys to keep stepping up.
 
“In practice, it’s just helping the young guys work on their strokes and then the senior doing the team breakdowns and getting everyone hyped up.”
 

Young and fellow returning swimming state placers Brett Ziser (fifth in the 100 freestyle, sixth in the 50 freestyle) and Baul Lee (sixth in the 100 breaststroke, 11th in the 200 individual medley) as well as the return of three state-placing divers – Braden Larson (third), Henry Lasater (eighth) and Jace Lessard (11th) – did give Andover a strong nucleus to build around for the bid for a three-peat.
 
The group of divers, in particular, helped give the Trojans a leg up, especially with addition of a fourth state qualifier this year in sophomore Logan Sailsbury. Even before the meet started, Andover went into it with a big advantage with the Trojans assured of no less than 27 points if its divers successfully accomplished all of their dives with only 12 qualifiers overall in that event.
 
And Biebighauser said that the Trojans’ strength in that event has been a big key in the championship run and has drawn the rest of the team into their importance.
 
“We switched our practice times to that we could see them more and that seemed to provide a little bit more investment as a team overall,” she said. “We had more energy and our swimmers came and watched diving, and asked how things were going. They were so tuned in and cheering them on and it was great.”
 
The divers did their part, indeed, as Lasater, Lessard and Larson finished 5-6-7 and Sailsbury added a 10th to give the Trojans 46 points from that event alone. Meanwhile, Andover’s top challengers in the team race – Kapaun, Blue Valley Southwest, Winfield, Wichita Collegiate, Lansing and Louisburg – had no diving qualifiers at all, getting zero points from the event.
 
Even without the diving differential, Andover did more than enough in the pool to erase any possible excuses about how the team race played out. Of the 20 swims the Trojans had in the individual events, they were able to secure second swims out of 18 of them, 10 of those making the championship finals along with all three relays qualifying for the championship finals as well.
 
For the likes of Young, Ziser and Lee, their appearances in the championship finals was hardly a shock. But it was the showings of their supporting cast that had Biebighauser thrilled.
 
“I was just so proud of how hard we tried and how hard we’ve come as a team,” she said. “People stepped up. Luke Farley (a senior) after two years of swimming made it to our state championship and swam in (consolation) finals. Everyone that swam, made it back to finals. I encouraged out boys to swim over the summer and keep stepping up and they responded.”
 

 
After taking runner-up in the 500 freestyle to state-record holder Zach Mendez of Lansing, Young decided to concentrate his efforts on a different event this year with Mendez back for his farewell tour. He poured himself into the 200 individual medley where he had had moderate success a year ago.
 
This season, however, he took it to another level in the event, cutting nearly nine seconds off his best time as a freshman, going into the state meet with the top seed with a 1:57.93, nearly three seconds ahead of rival Nathan Lynch of Wichita Collegiate.
 
After Lynch closed to within less than two seconds in Friday’s prelims, Young left nothing to chance in the finals. He took control of the race on the opening butterfly leg and built enough of a lead that by the time they got to Lynch’s specialty, the breaststroke, the ground was too much to make up.
 
Young finished with a career-best time of 1:56.49 to win by nearly four seconds over Lynch, who was second in 2:00.22.
 
“I love Nathan, he’s a great guy,” Young said. “I was pretty nervous, but I was thinking about all the years I’ve been swimming and it’s practice. Practice pays off. The butterfly had me nervous, but I got in a rhythm and that got me going.”
 

 
The rivals battled it out again later in the meet in the 100 breaststroke. But in that one, Lynch flipped the script and successfully defended the state title he won a year ago, winning in 58.15, more than a second ahead of Young’s runner-up finish in 59.41.
 
“I hoped I could get him, but he’s tough,” Young said. “Next year.”
 
While Young was the headliner for the Trojans, the argument could be made that the come-through performance of the meet was delivered by freshman Blake Royse. A lot was being put on his shoulders to help fill the voids from last year’s team, but he came through like a seasoned veteran.
 
Seeded just seventh in the 200 freestyle going into the meet, Royse qualified fourth in prelims and held that position in the finals. There was no catching Mendez, who broke the state meet record in both prelims and finals, blazing to a 1:36.82 on Saturday, but Royse was right in the mix for second place ultimately finishing behind both Henry Studnicka of Kapaun Mt. Carmel (1:45.97) and Dane Weninger of Blue Valley Southwest (1:46.67) with his time of 1:47.63 – a near-seven-second drop from his regular-season best.
 
Just as impressively, Royse dropped more than eight seconds off his season-best time in the 500 at state, cutting from a 5:01.73 to a 4:53.32 in the prelims to qualify second behind Mendez’s state-record time of 4:23.97 and then following it up with a 4:53.15 in finals to take the runner-up spot to Mendez, edging out Weninger, who was third in 4:53.70.
 
“I was very pleased with my performance and felt great about my races,” Royse said. “I think it’s awesome that I had two top-five finishes as a freshman and I’m excited to see what the future years have in store.”
 

 
Royse also teamed with Young, Lee and Ziser to finish third in the 400 freestyle relay in 3:21.33, with Lansing winning in 3:15.90 and Collegiate second in 3:18.07.
 
Ziser was Andover’s next-highest individual placer, taking third in the 100 butterfly in 54.00, just .18 behind Winfield’s Brandon Kendall for the runner-up spot to Louisburg’s Colin Brown, who won in 51.08.
 
The sophomore also added a seventh in a wild 50 freestyle shootout that saw .59 seconds separate first through seventh and the title end up shared by Eisenhower’s Dylan Patterson and Winfield’s Corden Cuington, who each posted 21.84s. Ziser finished in 22.43.
 
He also teamed with Young, junior Evan Gauldin and senior Luke Farley for a third in the 200 medley relay in 1:39.87, just .7 behind runner-up Louisburg and only 1.05 seconds behind champion Collegiate (1:38.82).
 
Lee, a junior, enjoyed his best state meet, finishing fifth in the 200 individual medley in 2:04.04 and seventh in the 100 breaststroke in 1:03.19. In addition to helping the 400 freestyle relay to a third, he also teamed with Gauldin, Farley and freshman Mitchell McCracken for a seventh in the 200 freestyle relay (1:31.68).
 
Gauldin and junior Jakob Pease were the only other Trojans to make the championship finals. Gauldin finished seventh in the 100 backstroke (58.41) and also was 10th in the 10 100 freestyle, while Pease finished eighth in the 500 freestyle (5:07.83), after going into state as the ninth seed, and also took 14th in the 100 butterfly.
 
Andover also got consolation placings and key points from McCracken (10th in the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle), freshman Alex Rosen (16th in the 200 freestyle), Farley (13th in the 100 freestyle), senior Isaac Genereux (10th in the 100 backstroke) and freshman Corbin Williams (15th in the 100 breaststroke).
 
Of the 16 Trojans on the state team, 15 contributed points in some fashion.
 
“Our two captains, Isaac and Luke, they’re not club swimmers,” Biebighauser said. “So for them to make it to state and get second swims, that’s what it’s about. It just shows how hard they tried. We tried a lot of things and did variations of relays because we weren’t sure where we’d end up at state. But every one of them knew that they carried something.
 
“They felt the pressure coming in and the uncertainty. Last year, we knew what was going to happen, but this year there was a lot more nervous energy flowing through it. Starting from the get-go, it was ‘Is (the three-peat) going to happen?’ They knew it was going to be closer this year, but there was some want behind this team. Want to make it to state and want to show what we could do from all of them. They were confident and knew what they had to do and went out and did it and I couldn’t be more proud of a group of guys.”
 
While the battle for the team championship ended up a runaway win for the Trojans, the battle for the final team trophy ended up coming down to the final event with Blue Valley Southwest, Winfield and Wichita Collegiate locked in a tight battle.
 
With just the 400 freestyle relay left, Winfield sat in third with 177.5 points while Southwest was fourth with 162 and Collegiate fifth with 156. But with points double for the relay, the race for third was very much up in the air.
 
Winfield was the only of the three not in the championship finals, but a victory in the consolation final would have secured 18 points and gotten the Vikings to 195.5 points, forcing Collegiate to win the race or Southwest to win or take second to overtake them. But when the Vikings finished second in the consolation final (10th) overall, it opened up the door a little wider and Southwest capitalized.
 
The Timberwolves posted a fourth-place finish to push their total to 192, edging Winfield by a mere half point for the third-place position and final team trophy. Collegiate nearly spoiled things for both, leading the race until Lansing’s Mendez brought home the title for the Lions with a dominant anchor, relegating the Spartans to a runner-up finish in the relay and fifth-place team finish with 190 points, just two behind Southwest for third.
 

CLASS 5-1A STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS
 
TEAM SCORES
 
Andover 318, Kapaun Mt. Carmel 210, Blue Valley Southwest 192, Winfield 191.5, Wichita Collegiate 190, Lansing 176, Louisburg 149, Buhler 115, Andover Central 97, Basehor-Linwood 84, De Soto 76, Seaman 48, Newton 45, Hays 39, Maize South 39, Eisenhower 38.5, St. Thomas Aquinas 36, St. James Academy 31, Frontenac 30, Shawnee Heights 25, Andale 20, Bishop Miege 20, Piper 19, Wichita Trinity Academy 12, Bishop Carroll 11, Hutchinson 11, Bennington 10, Paola 9, Southeast of Saline 7, Wichita Independent 7, Circle 6, McPherson 6, Salina South 5, Smoky Valley 5, Valley Center 4, El Dorado 2, Tonganoxie 2.