Girls Swimming: Depth lifts Seahorses

MUNSTER — When next week’s IHSAA girls swimming sectionals begin, most second and third place finishes won’t stand out. 

The individual winners and a select few who meet the state cut line will advance down to IUPUI for the state meet.

However, at Thursday’s final regular season dual, featuring two of the premier programs in the state, an extra surge of depth proved to be especially crucial. To go along with eight firsts, host Munster picked up 12 other top three finishes in a 109-77 upset of Chesterton. This marks the first time in years that the NCC squad has defeated the higher ranked girls from the DAC.

With some tweaks to his regular lineup, Munster coach Matt Pavlovich wanted everyone to swim in a postseason atmosphere.

“I was trying to get across to those kids (who swim in the lower tiers) that you’re going to swim like our state kids,” he said.

So while regulars like Mary Beth Blocher (who contributed firsts in the 200 medley and 200 free relays and swam a 53.10 to win the 100 free) were dominant, so too were swimmers like Ashley Hwang. Hwang helped grab thirds with lower teams in two relays and also won the 100 fly in 59.21. The finish was her best of the season and came after a brief delay.

“It kind of psyched me up, because of technical difficulties,” said the sophomore who received a call back in the event to last year’s state meet.

The loss was the first for the Trojans (10-1).

“They swam great and it wasn’t that we swam bad, but they just came fired up,” Chesterton coach Kevin Kinel said. “They did a great job of going after our weaknesses.”

Olivia Kabacinski led Chesterton with firsts in the 50 free (23.80), 100 breast (1:05.82) and 400 free relay.  

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