WOOSTER — Whoever is in charge of keeping track of the Ohio Cardinal Conference swimming and diving meet records may not want to use permanent ink.
The conference record book will have a dramatically different look after the final day of the OCC meet Saturday at Wooster High School’s Ellen Shapiro Natatorium. New conference marks were established in five girls events and six boys events.
Wooster swept the team competition, winning the girls title with 517 points and the boys crown with 515 points. In girls action, Ashland (361) was runner-up, while Lexington (356) was third. Orrville (283), Madison (205) and Mansfield Senior (183) rounded out the team scoring.
On the boys side, Lexington (457) was second. Ashland (314) was third, while Mansfield Senior (248) was fourth, Madison (208) was fifth and Orrville (8) was sixth.
The talk poolside was about the blistering times turned in during the second day of the two-day competition.
“The way kids were dropping time, I’ve never seen this before at the conference. Some people dropped a ton of time,” Mansfield Senior assistant coach Jacob Pearl said. “I can’t speak for every team, but we feel like our kids are in better shape now than they ever have before. That has a lot to do with it.”
Senior High’s Hutch Blackstone, a senior and already a two-time state qualifier in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke, shattered the OCC record in the 50 freestyle Saturday afternoon. Remarkably, Blackstone’s winning time of 21.49 seconds was more than a quarter-second faster than the 2010 mark of 21.77 set by Alex McCord, a former Wooster High School standout, who swam collegiately for Ohio State.
Blackstone finished second in the 100 breaststroke to Wooster’s Daniel Ackerman. Both Ackerman’s winning time (58.55) and Blackstone’s runner-up time (59.67) were more than two full seconds faster than the former OCC mark of 1:01.82, set by Blackstone last year.
“The whole point of today was to swim times fast enough to qualify for state at the end of the season,” Blackstone said. “Today is an important meet. It is the conference championship, but it isn’t what I’m training for. The focus is on the end of the season.”
Like Blackstone, Lexington’s Hannah Stevens spent most of Saturday afternoon rewriting the OCC record books. She set new standards in the 100 freestyle (51.62), breaking her own OCC record of 54.39 set in 2012. She also shattered one of the OCC’s longest standing records in the 100 backstroke. Her time of 56.35 was more than two seconds faster than former Wooster star Whitney Hooley’s OCC mark of 59.15 established in 2004.
Stevens, who placed sixth in the 200 backstroke at the 2013 Speedo Winter Junior Nationals in Greensboro, N.C. in early December and the MVP of last year’s Division II state meet after winning state titles in the 100 backstroke and the 100 freestyle, shared the OCC’s Female Swimmer of the Year award with Wooster’s Gabrielle Sibilia. Wooster’s Matthew Dyer was the boys MVP.
“I’m right where I want to be, especially after my juniors meet,” Stevens said. “I was pretty happy about that meet. It definitely helped me build momentum in coming to the end of the season.”
Stevens’ winning time in the 100 backstroke was a whopping 7.69 seconds faster than runner-up Abriana Hosler of Ashland.
“I love racing here, especially because it is the last big meet we do with the team,” Stevens said. “It’s a fun atmosphere.”
It was the first time Stevens has won the conference MVP award.
“She wasn’t the conference swimmer of the year last year, but she was the state MVP,” Lex coach Brock Spurling joked.
Spurling was thrilled with his team’s performance Saturday.
“I’m very, very happy with where we are right now,” Spurling said. “The kids came out and were motivated. They had a lot of confidence.
“This is our first actual meet in the last two weeks because of the weather. I know the kids have been getting that itch to get up and race and compete.”
Lexington’s Derek Sautter also won a pair of events Saturday. The junior took home gold in the 100 butterfly (OCC-record 53.37) and the 500 freestyle (5:03.13).
Considering the lack of practice time, Madison coach Matthew Wade was equally as excited by Madison’s showing Saturday.
“I was super pleased with the way we performed,” Wade said. “It was hard not having practice Monday or Tuesday because of the weather, but we told our kids, ‘We’re not going to rest you as much as we typically would.’ We normally give them them two days rests, but we did tough workouts Wednesday and Thursday. They were hurting after Thursday.
“This was probably our best conference meet we’ve had. We had a lot of kids turn in their best time and now our focus turns to the end of the year.”
Follow Curt Conrad on Twitter @curtjconrad.
