The Walnut Hills Ducks swept the board, earning the championship title for both the male and female teams at the Greater Mansfield Aquatic Conference (GMAC) held this week.
The final scores of the combined male and female teams are as follows: Walnut Hills: 2254, Woodland: 1985, Clear Fork: 1871.5, Ashland: 1523, and the Woods: 788.5.
GMAC celebrated its 50th anniversary with a bang: Of the 88 events, 26 records were broken, and some of which were nearly 30 years old.
Despite the thunderstorms, the GMAC competition ended on Saturday with the second half of the swimming events. The competition was held at the Walnut Hills pool.
Kate Cropp, 18, veteran swimmer for Walnut Hills, served as a valuable asset to the team by capturing three individual first places in the 15-18 200 yard I.M., 15-18 200 yard freestyle, and the 15-18 50 yard butterfly. In the butterfly event, she broke the 20-year-old record by .01 seconds with a time of 27.20. She was also part of the 15-18 200 yard medley relay team that placed second and the 15-18 200 yard freestyle relay that placed first.
She explained the moment leading up to her 200 I.M. and said, “I was talking to a friend behind the blocks and said how this would be the last time I would swim this event, and so I really wanted to go out with a bang.” Although the 200 I.M. is not her favorite event to swim, she mentioned, “I try to do what I can for the team.”
Continuing with that team-spirited attitude, Cropp dove earlier in the week in an effort to rack up more points for her team. “While diving isn’t my forte, I used to do gymnastics, and as long as I’m getting points, I did my job,” she said. Cropp earned fourth place in her age group.
Cropp has been swimming for 14 years as part of not only the Walnut Hills team, but also with the Lexington swim team, and the Greater Columbus Swim Team of Ohio.
Kyle Cordrey, 14, belongs to the Woodland swim team. While this is his first year as an eel, he has been swimming for six years total.
Cordrey earned four first-places in the 13-14 50 yard butterfly, 13-14 200 yard I.M., 13-14 200 yard medley relay, and 13-14 200 yard freestyle relay. Both relays broke records. Cordrey also swam the 13-14 50 yard backstroke and earned second place.
Cordrey enjoys the sport because he has a lot of friends who participate and, “I like it because I’m pretty good at it,” he said then laughed.
Maxton Lower, 8, of the Clear Fork swim team, smashed two records in the boys eight-and-under 25 yard freestyle with a time of 13.44 (previous record was 14.67) and in the eight-and-under 25 yard butterfly with a time of 14.07 (previous record was 16.72). He also broke the eight-and-under 25 yard breaststroke with a time of 18.61, but Rylan McDaniel of the Ashland swim team out-stroked him by .17 seconds, and officially claimed the record.
