Under the guidance and leadership of Coach Jim Mathews, Mount Vernon’s mustang swimmers lowered their times and raised their seedย levels at the state-level 1A Championship held at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center.On February 3, the Preliminaries for Divisions A – 5A took place, followed by Finals on February 4.ย The top 20 teams from Prelims advanced to the Finals.
Qualifying Relay Events
200 Medley Relay
200 Free Relay
400 Free Relay
Qualifying Individual Events
James McGuire – 200 Free, 100 Breast, 500 Free, 200 IM, 100 Free
Connor Hughes – 100 Fly
Nic Lew – 100 Free
STATE QUALIFIERS:
James McGuire, Class of 2017 – 200 Free, 200 IM, 100 Breast, 100 Free, 500 Free, 200 Medley Relay, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay
Connor Hughes, Class of 2017 – 100 Fly, 200 Medley Relay, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay
Nic Lew, Class of 2018 – 100 Free, 200 Medley Relay, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay
Steven Butz, Class of 2017 – 200 Medley Relay, 200 Free Relay, 400 Free Relay
Alternate swimmers:ย Mitch Lutes, Townsend Lambert, August Durlacher, Clayton Patnode, Jonathan Gardner, and Jack McGuire
STATE RESULTS
200 Medley Relay: entered the meet seeded 29th in the State.ย Prelim result was 19th – jumping 10 places to earn a finals spot.
200 Free Relay: entered the meet seeded 49th in the State. Prelim result was 21st – jumping 28 places and earning a 1st alternate spotย (this relay result was significant as it was anchored by Mitch Lutes, an alternate that Coach Mathews had take the spot of James McGuire).
400 Free Relay: entered the meet seeded 29th. Prelim result was 13th – jumping 16 places and earning spot in the finals.
James McGuire, who signed to swim at Miami University,ย made the finals as expected in two of his events, coming in 5th place overall in the 200 Free, and 4th overall in 100 Breast.
Swimming against nine other schools in our division, Mustangs excelled!
Coach Mathews reflects on the season, “This season we celebrated many accomplishments. James McGuire wasย a standout, Connor Hughes, a non-year round swimmer, specialized in butterfly for the team all season and qualified for State in the 100 Fly, and another senior, Steven Butz, took over the Backstroke role after Charlie Goldman graduated last year, helping the boys team qualify for State in the 200 Medley relay.
Also, in the first ever 1A Championship Meet, our boys team placed 2nd out of 10 schools.
The future of the team looks very bright as juniors Nic Lew and Mitch Lutes will be stepping up as Captains. Nic demonstrated his abilities this year by swimmingย on three State relay teams, as well as earning an individual State cut in the 100 free.
The Mustang girls team has a very bright future as well. Last year the team only had 5 girls, and this year the team had 18, most of whom are freshman.
The overall team grew in numbers year to year. Last year we had 24 swimmers and noย divers, and this year we grew toย 36 swimmers and 2 divers. I am confident the program will continue to grow, as our Middle School program, led by James Lavender, has been developing strong Mustang swimmers.”
