Courtesy of the AJC
The Peachtree Ridge boys defeated Parkview on Saturday with one of the closest margins in the history of the state swimming meet. Peachtree Ridge won the Class AAAAA championship with 247 points — just three points ahead of Parkview with 244. It also snapped the three-year state-championship streak for Brookwood (233), which placed third.
“Wow, that was [the best finish to] the state meet that I’ve ever seen,” Peachtree Ridge coach Jeremy Laird said. “It was an amazing accomplishment, something our boys have talked about ever since finishing second to Brookwood last year.”
Meanwhile, the Lassiter girls won their fourth consecutive Class AAAAA championship. In Class AAAA-A late Saturday night, the Marist girls won it all for the fifth consecutive year, with 298 points to defeat Westminster (273.5) and St. Pius (202). Also, Wesleyan boys captured the state championship with 323 points over Chattahoochee (226.5) and Westminster (165).
Laird said he didn’t celebrate Peachtree Ridge’s state championship until the final event — the 400 relay — had ended. “I was a [bundle of nerves] until then because it was so close and could’ve gone either way, with us or Parkview.”
Peachtree Ridge was led by Luke Upchurch, who won both the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke. He has signed with Georgia. Said Laird, “This is a young man that can swim any stroke in any event, and he’s going to finish in the top three.”
Parkview’s Ricky Lehner broke the state record in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 55.88 seconds. Parkview had another top swimmer disqualified from one of the final events, costing the team valuable points in the stretch run.
“The record is bittersweet,” Lehner said. “We really wanted the team championship. It wasn’t one person’s fault that we didn’t get it. We could’ve stepped up in other places, but we didn’t.
“It was good to go from sixth place last year to second. Next year, we might even do better.”
The Lassiter girls rallied from a slow start to easily win, with 291.5 points, followed by Brookwood (262) and Mill Creek (210).
“We never got discouraged early — in fact, they got mad,” Lassiter coach Glenn Meeden said. “The slow start made us want it even more. I never give up on them no matter where we are at. They had the best attitude and knew they could pull it out.”
The turning point for Lassiter was the 1-2 finish in the 100 freestyle, with Samantha Bosma winning, just ahead of teammate Kim Carducci.
“We knew we could get that fourth one,” Lassiter coach Glenn Meeden said. “I don’t even know if they realize what it means to get four straight titles in any sport, especially a hard one like swimming — because of the tremendous competition.”
When asked about five in a row, Marist girls coach Terry Blish said, “Talk to the girls over there. They were quite impressive. It’s a scrappy little team. We had the team depth that it takes to win.”
Wesleyan coach Colin Creel jumped in the pool with his swimmers after taking team championship pictures together.
“It certainly has been a long and hard road,” Creel said. “These kids have had a clear purpose and a clear goal. They’ve worked extremely hard since last year, when they lost the state championship [to GAC] on the last relay.”
Also, Northview’s Matias Koski set two state records. He was impressive in the preliminaries of the 200 freestyle and later won the event with a time of 1.37.98.
“He switched his approach in [the finals] and started off a little bit easier,” Northview coach Kevin Cargill said. “That turned out to be the difference, as he had a little more energy for the second half of the race and brought it home.”
Matias, only a junior, also broke the record in the 100 freestyle with a time of 44.66 seconds, as the first leg of the 400 freestyle team.
“To break two state records in one day, especially in the state of Georgia where you’ve had so many great swimmers come though, that says something about [Koski's] talent and ability,” Cargill said. “The great thing is that he is just a junior, and he can go after his own records again next year.”
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