Swimming: Huron dunks Bedford in final home meet of the season

By Margaret Baker 

Huron’s Girls’ Swim/Dive team defeated Bedford on Thursday 117-69 at their last home meet of the season.

Other than the 200 Free, won by Bedford’s Hannah Smith (2:10.31), with juniors Ayaka Sakamoto (2:19.10) and Cali Streeter (2:22.26), in 3rd and 5th for that race, Huron took first in every event, beginning with the speedy “A” 200 Medley squad of senior/captain Emily Tran, junior Emma Kaipainen, freshman Sawako Sakamoto, and junior Zannah Baker (1:54.99).  Tran won the 200 IM (2:19.13), and senior Ella Szmansky took 3rd (2:39.62), and senior/captain Annaliese Streeter swam a D1 cut time of 24.90 in the 50 free, with junior Kathryn Hemmila taking 3rd (26.60).

 In the next three events, Huron placed three swimmers:  100 Fly: freshman Sawako Sakamoto in 1st (1:04.79), sophomore Lucy Schneidewind in 4th (1:19.86), and sophomore Hannah Burmann in 5th (1:28.84); 100 Free, A. Streeter (54.58) in 1st, freshman Jasmine Xu (55.77) in 2nd and sophomore Catherine Li (1:01.19) in 4th; 500 free, Kaipainen (5:50.99) in 1st, and freshmen Natalie Bohnsack (7:10.20) and Rihanna Gleason (7:49.63), in 4th and 5th, respectively.

Huron’s “A” and “B” teams easily took 1st and 2nd in the 200 Free relay, with Hemmila, Li, senior Clara Bowman and Kaipainen in 1st (1:50.76), and junior Ayaka Sakamoto, Schneidewind, junior Cali Streeter and Szmansky in 2nd (1:54.52), and Tran touched first in the 100 Back (1:01.78) with Baker in 3rd (1:07.38).

Freshman Xu continued to shine, winning the 100 Breast (1:08.90), just shy of the D1 cut. S. Sakamoto (1:19.22) was 3rd in that event. Finally, A. Streeter, Hemmila, Baker and Xu, won the 400 Free relay (3:45.86), continuing to close in on the D1 cut of 3:43.99.

The River Rat divers dazzled, with senior/captain/reigning state champion Annie Costello taking 1st (274.80), senior Julie Park (217.05) in 2nd, junior Maggie Thomas (154.40) in 4th, and junior Sitara Baxendale (109.85) diving for 5th in exhibition.  Following tradition for the last home meet of the season, the divers also made a fine showing in a 200 Free relay, finishing in an impressive 2:13.08!

Huron will end their regular season tomorrow evening at Skyline and head to SEC’s on Saturday, Oct. 31.

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