The boys of Shawnee Mission-East and O P Blue Valley-North’s battle for the 6A title came down to the 400 Freestyle relay on Saturday night with Shawnee holding on to dethrone the reigning champions. While Blue Valley-North put on a show with their top end speed for most of the evening the depth of Shawnee Mission turned out to be too much.
Blue Valley-North started off the finals session breaking last year’s state record (1:34.11) of Washburn Rural(1:34.49) in the 200 Medley Relay. Ryan McMonigle(23.97) Jamie Cohen(27.10) Sam Disette(22.73) and Brian North(20.31) held off Lawrence Free State(1:34.39),also under the old state record, who finished 2nd with Mission East 3rd at 1:35.78
Sophomore Jordan Portela of Lawrence-Free State would immediately hop back up onto the blocks after the 200 medley relay to win the 200 Freestyle in 1:40.39. The sophomore was out in 48.08 a second and half faster than Senior Dylan Walters of Olathe who could nont make up the difference placing second in 1:42.23
Blue Valley-North juniors Philip Musser and Ryan McMonigle would lead the charge for their team. Musser would take a page out of Portela’s book by taking out the 200 IM well under state record pace. The junior was unable to hold that pace through the back-half of the Im falling 7 tenths of a second short. Benjamin Schmatz(1:54.50) of Shawnee Mission East would touch second holding off a charging Josh Terrell(1:56.20) from Lawrence-Free State.
Lawrence-Free State senior Jack Ziegler would claim the 50 freestyle state title while just missing the state record in the 50 free by 4 one hundredths of a second. Blue Valley-North was not far behind with Brian North (21.13) and Sam Disette (21.32) placing second and third.
After the diving break Portela would return to his specialty the 100 butterfly; touching in at 49.77 to break Jake Slitz state record set in 2013. Ryan Sweat(50.41) of Shawnee Mission-South and John Fritsch(50.41) of Topeka-Washburn would round out the 100 butterfly podium.
Musser would return as well this time in the 100 freestyle(45.93) beating out 200 freestyle runner-up Walters (46.56 and well as 50 free champion Ziegler(46.95)
With their team down with only 5 events left Aidan Holbrook and Benjamin Schmatz stepped up big for the Shawnee boys. The freshman Holbrook would lead from start to finish posting a 4:42.80 and beating out fellow freshman Stephen Johnson(4:48.72) of Lawrence. After a heartbreaking loss to Blue Valley(1:26.79) in the 200 freestyle relay the boys of Shawnee Mission came storming back.The Shawnee men placed 8th, 10th and 13th in the 100 back canceling out the win from Blue Valley-North junior Ryan McMonigle in the 100 backstroke(51.50). Schmatz( 57.84) took out the 100 in a little over half a second from what he split on the medley relay and held off Josh Terrell(58.02) of Lawrence Free State. With Schmatz taking first and teammate Tom Peters touching 7th Shawnee Mission now had a lead that they could only lose with a false start on their 400 freestyle relay.
With the state championship no longer a possibility for Lawrence Free State Portela and Ziegler would combine to help Lawrence Free State break the state record in the 400 Freestyle relay (3:08.07) well under the record of Washburn Rural (3:09.47) set last year. Blue Valley placed 5th in the championship final with safe starts from the entire Shawnee relay placing them 7th. Blue Valley would come up 3 points short giving Shawnee Mission-East high school the 6A state title .
The last state champion of 6A would be Shawnee Mission-South senior Jackson Conrad on the 1-meter posting a score of 549.70.