Colorado High School Girl’s Swimming & Diving State Championship Meet – 4A
- February 7th-8th, 2019
- VMAC, Thornton, Colorado
- Meet Results (PDF)
The Rampart Rams had déjà vu on Friday at the 2019 Colorado Girls’ 4A High School State Championship. Last year, they opened the meet, the middle of 3 state meets in Colorado, with a state record in the 200 medley relay, and rolled on to the program’s first-ever state title.
This year, they replaced two swimmers (the now-graduated Clarke twins), cut 4 tenths off the old record, and were off to a 2nd-straight state championship. They knocked off Niwot high School by 62.5 points to win their back-to-back title, with 2017 champions Cheyenne Mountain placing 3rd, just behind Niwot.
Unaided by the new 20-place scoring for this year’s championship (Rampart picked up just 1 point from swimmers that finished in the new 17th-20th places, while Niwot added several), it was sprinters and divers that booster Rampart to the state title this year. They had 5 wins in total at the meet, including bookending the relays with a win in the 400 free in 3:29.61. That included a 51.58 leadoff from Lindsey Immel and a 51.55 anchor from Edenna Chen: the team’s two returning stars.
Those two also finished 1-2 in the 100 free, with the sophomore Immel winning in 51.54 and senior Chen placing 2nd in 52.20.
Chen went on to win the 100 breaststroke in 1:01.40, which broke the 4A State Record and was more than 3 seconds better than a senior-heavy field.
Rampart didn’t have enough depth to sweep the relays: their 200 free was just 8th. But the addition of freshman Claire Timson, who scored 39 individual points and swam on two relays, went a long way for filling in for some big graduations for the Rams.
For the 2nd-straight year, Rampart also got a big lift from their divers. Sophomore Maggie Buckley moved up a spot from last year to take the title on the 1-meter with a score of 498.65, while senior Gabrielle Peltier added a 6th-place finish. That was good for 41 points for Rampart.
Other scorers for the Rampart title winning team included junior Laelle Brovold, sophomore Johanna Miller, senior Molly Smith, freshman Flora Fillere, and sophomore Valentina Ischenko.
Other 4A Title Winners:
- Niwo received a huge boost in their upset bid from a freshman as well. Mary Codevilla made her presence known at her first state championship meet with a title in the girls’ 200 IM. She won that race in 2:03.99, exactly a second faster than Cheyenne Mountain’s Harper Lehman. The difference came on the breaststroke, where Codevilla split 36.07. She later finished 2nd in the 500 free in 5:01.19.
- That 500 free win went to Loveland senior Erin Lang, who won in 4:58.35. That’s Lang’s 3rd-straight title in the event after placing 4th as a freshman (in 5A before Loveland moved to 4A). She also added a title in the 200 free in 1:52.15, winning by two-and-a-half seconds. That’s her first title in the 200 free. Lang will swim for Iowa starting in the fall.
- Mullen High School, which placed 4th overall as a team, picked up their lone individual win of the day when senior Sofia Zinis won the 50 free in 23.43 ahead of Rampart’s Immel in 23.76. Ziniis was just .21 seconds from the 4A State Record in the event. Zinis then anchored the team’s 200 free relay in 23.22, where they picked up a 2nd title. Also on that relay were her sister Gabrielle Zinis, Claire Chahbandour, and Lindsey Sowitch, all of whom are just sophomores.
- Cheyenne Mountain’s Harper Lehman won the girls’ 100 fly in 56.57. That’s a lifetime best for her by two-tenths of a second.
- Monarch High’s Katey Lewicki won the girls’ 100 backstroke in 54.36. That’s her lifetime best by half-a-second and in total makes for a 1.2 second improvement already in her junior season.
Top 5 Team Scores
- Rampart – 366
- Niwot – 303.5
- Cheyenne Mountain – 299
- Mullen High – 258
- Silver Creek – 226