The Pacers handled business at home as both teams took top honors during Friday and Saturday’s Delaware Hayes Swimming and Diving Invitational at OWU’s Meek Aquatics Center.
The boys nabbed 365 points to cruise to their second title in as many years. Westerville South finished second with 224 points while Bishop Watterson smoothed out the top three with 193.
The 200 yard freestyle relay team provided one of several highlights as Kael Gannon, Lucas Pape, Zach Ward and Andrew Parker teamed up to set a new meet record. Hayes tied Watterson for top honors in the event with a time of 1:31.02.
Other solid showings belonged to Parker, who won the 100 freestyle (49.91 seconds); Paul Carter, who won the 100 breaststroke (1:03.92); and the 400 freestyle relay team of Zach Ward, Caleb Bucher, Ethan Hall and Aidan Stojkov, which nabbed first-place points (3:36.76).
The Pacer girls, who won the event for the first time since 2014, edged runner-up Watterson 262-259.5. Colonel Crawford finished third with 246 points.
Danielle Ward nabbed first-place points in the 100 butterfly (1:01.87) to pad her team’s point total. She also had a hand in Hayes’ 200 freestyle relay team’s second-place performance, combining with Lauren Ertz, Elizabeth Abahazi and Rena Ouyang to finish in 1:44.63.
Buckeye Valley was also in action. The Baron boys finished sixth with 98 points while the girls closed sixth with 34.
Top BV performers included Gretchen Jolif, who finished third in the girls 1-meter diving event (172.40); and Luke Jaycox, Dylan Fisher, Jacob Fisher and Philip Holst, who teamed up to finish third in the boys 400 freestyle relay (3:56.11).
Including the one Hayes was a part of, five different meet records and two pool records were broken during the invitational.
Hilliard Darby’s Lexie McDonald set a meet and pool record in the girls 200 IM (2:12.90) and Watterson’s Elizabeth Intihar did the same in the 500 freestyle (5:10.70).
As for the boys, Darby’s Hayden Apel set a meet record in the diving event (235.10) and Westerville South’s Nate Stadler set a meet record en route to winning the 100 backstroke (52.94 seconds).
