Carroll, Grapevine and Heritage to be represented at state

The regional swimming meets proved to be good ones for the Carroll, Colleyville Heritage and Grapevine swimming and diving teams, as each school will send athletes to the state competition.

Carroll coach Kevin Murphy said his program performed about as well as he expected it to at the regional meet and said that he feels that one of his teams has a good shot at bringing home hardware.

“The regional meet was very competitive,” Murphy said. “What was even more competitive was the number of fast swims throughout the state. We had hoped to get about 10 individual swims on the boys side out to state. We got eight. We had hoped to get about six or eight girls swims out, and we got two. So we've got two girl divers and two individual swims for the girls, and we have two divers and eight individual swims for the boys. We also have all six relays out.”

Carson Klein, Jack LeVant, Maddy Kieser, Emilee Torres, Nate Hernandez, Luke MacFarland, the boys 200 freestyle relay, Chantal Meyer, the girls 400 freestyle relay, the boys 400 freestyle relay, the girls 200 medley relay, the boys 200 medley relay, Austin Whalen, John Everett, Casey Rose, Gus Karau and the girls 200 freestyle relay will all represent Carroll at state.

Murphy said the objectives for state are pretty straightforward.

“We feel like the boys are in the command position,” Murphy said. “If we swim well, the coach prepares them properly and do our job, we should be very difficult to beat. You never know that for a fact, and you always have to protect yourself against mistakes, but we would look very difficult to handle.

“On the girls side, we could be anywhere from third to sixth place. A couple of teams look insurmountable, including Kingwood and Westlake, so it will be tough.”

For Colleyville Heritage, Bridget Pacilio will represent the Panthers swim team in the 200 IM at the state meet.

Grapevine had a phenomenal meet in the 5A division, and coach Daniel Jau said that he believes his team should also have a good showing at state.

“Grapevine did very well,” Jau said. “They were the regional runner-ups for the both the boys and girls. The Grapevine girls almost won region. They were edged out by a couple of points. We qualified nine from Grapevine High School.”

Madison Chao, Erin Palmer, Keelie Shuck, David Hallaron, the boys 200 medley relay, Ben Kalmbach and they boys 200 freestyle relay will all represent Grapevine at state.

Jau said the objectives for the state meet are to compete well and try to bring home some medals if possible, but added that it has been more than 15 years since the team has had this good a season.

“I'm looking at trying to get in the top eight and into the finals for Saturday,” Jau said. “We are hoping to get at least a relay and individual in, and just try to have our best showing at Grapevine since 1998. It's been a while.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2015 at 3:25 PM with the headline "Carroll, Grapevine and Heritage to be represented at state."