KSHSAA 1-5A Junior State Championships
- Lenexa School District Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center
- 16, 17 and 18 February
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Complete results
The KSHSAA 1-5A Boys’ Swimming and Diving State Championships was an uphill battle between two-time defending champions Andover Central High School and rival Andover High School. Wichita Collegiate and Wichita Kapaun-Mount Carmel also made noise, thanks to strong individual performances and two Wichita Collegiate relay victories.
Wichita Collegiate High School kicked off the meet with a dominant performance in the 200 medley relay, winning in 1:36.71. The collegiate excelled with the fastest breaststroke and butterfly splits in the field, provided by Adam Sandid (25.68) and Derek Yang (22.56), respectively. Andover Central and Andover High finished 2nd and 3rd respectively, posting times of 1:37.19 and 1:38.27 respectively, making them the only three teams to surpass 1:40 on the field.
Sandid, who will swim at Johns Hopkins University beginning in the fall of 2023, did not swim breaststroke for the remainder of the event, opting instead for the 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly and 200m freestyle relay. Similarly, Yang would not swim the 100m butterfly later in the competition, instead sticking to the 50m and 100m freestyle and 200m free relay.
Moments after collecting gold in the 200m medley relay, Sandid returned to the water for the 200m freestyle to defend his 2022 title. Although Sandid has not lowered his one-year state record (1:39.92), he won the race with an impressive 1:41.33, more than 3 seconds ahead of the runner-up Jackson Lee from Andover Central who clocked in 1:44.60, shaving a full second off the best time of his life.
Sandid collected his second individual gold of the day in the 100m butterfly, finishing in 50.42. Lee, once again, took silver behind Sandid in 52.11, shaving 0.73 from his preliminary time. Sandid and Yang finished their 2023 season with another win in the 200m freestyle relay, moving Wichita Collegiate to a 1:27.43, coming to the wall more than 2 1/2 seconds ahead of Maize South, who finished in 1:30.12, fed with a division of 20.41 by Reagan RichardsonThe leg anchor, the fastest in the field.
Maize South’s Richardson was one of three individual double champions, along with Sandid and Wichita Kapaun-Mount Carmel Frank Alberti. Richardson, a sprint specialist, took gold in the 50m and 100m freestyle on Saturday, flirting with the state record in the former and lowering it in the latter.
Richardson won the 50m freestyle in 20.56, just 0.10 ahead of Wichita Collegiate Derek Yang, who won silver in 20.66. Richardson’s effort in the 50m fell just .08 short of the state record (20.48) set in 2013 by Winfield’s Keizer Witte. Richardson later won the 100m freestyle, posting a new state record of 45.06, edging Lex Hernandez-Nietling’s 2019 mark by .06. Richardson’s new record in the 100m free marked the only state record in an individual event in KSHSAA 1-5A or 6A championships. Yang took silver again in 47.33. Minutes later, Yang capped off her bout with a win in the 200m freestyle relay.
Frank Albertirepresenting Wichita Kapaun-Mount Carmel, won the 200 medley in 1:53.95, hitting the wall just before Andover Central Brian Nguyen, a sophomore, who came close to silver in 1:54.33. Alberti lapped 1:58.93 in the preliminaries, even though he was clearly leading the race in the finals. Alberti dominated the top 100, posting a 52.45 at the start of the breaststroke, exactly one second ahead of Nguyen. Nguyen, however, made his move on the breaststroke, splitting a 33.24, which he tied for split fastest on course with teammate and 3rd place finisher Noah Kruger (1:56.44). Alberti clocked a 26.74 to finish the freestyle, a good 0.90 faster than Nguyen. According to SWIMS, Alberti’s best time going into the fight was 1:56.05, giving the junior an overall drop of 2.10 seconds.
Alberti also won the 100m backstroke, recording a 51.41, slightly less than his preliminary time of 51.14, albeit 2.49 seconds ahead of the runner-up. David Gott of Andover High. Nguyen took 3rd place in 54.11, 0.01 faster than his preliminary time, posting an overall drop of nearly half a second from his fastest time earlier in the bout.
Andover Central’s Noah Kruger he won the 100m breaststroke in 58.63, becoming the only swimmer to clear 1:00 in the field. Although Krueger was not the fastest swimmer in the 50-yard curve, his strong back half propelled him to victory, posting a 31.28 on the second 50, edging the next fastest by almost a second.
Lansing sophomore Zach Mendez won the 500m freestyle in 4:46.90, almost 5 seconds close to the Andover silver, David Gott, which touched in 4:51.51. Notably, Gott would go on to win the 6A title in the 500m freestyle with his second time at meet 1-5A.
Overland Park-Aquinas sophomore year Alex Moller he won the 1-meter diving competition, amassing 450.90 points to lead the 9-man field. by Buhler Benjamin Helus he placed 2nd with 368.80 points. Andover High held a slight lead over Andover Central in diving as the former boasted two divers while the latter had zero. Second year Braden Larson scored 15 points for Andover High with a 5th place on the 1-yard board, while the freshman Enrico Laserter he scored 9 points with a 9th-place finish. While these points alone don’t explain the difference between Andover Central and Andover High, they did provide Central with a cushion in the second half of the fixture.
Both Andover High School and Andover Central High School swam under the 2020 state record set by Wichita Independent School in 2020 (3:11.60), hitting the wall in 3:10.89 and 3:11.27, respectively. Although Maize South placed 4th in the 400m free relay, Reagan Richardsonthe 50m and 100m freestyle champion, blasted a 44.68 split to cap his high school career, fastest on the course by over 2 seconds.
Ultimately, both Andover schools would finish 1-2 in team standings, with Andover High taking the team title with a total of 311 points, while Andover Central takes second place with 262 points, well ahead of Wichita Collegiate , who finished third with 216 points.
