Results
Jacksonville, IL – The Prairie Fire swimming teams lost in a dual at Illinois College on Saturday.
The Lady Blues outscored the Knox women’s squad 117-85 and the Blueboys won the men’s meet 117-45.
Four Prairie Fire women’s swimmers won individual events against Illinois College. One of the winners also placed second in another race among a field of multiple competitors. The Knox women’s 200 freestyle relay team placed first as well.
Two swimmers for the Prairie Fire men’s team earned first place finishes. First-years Sam Chen (Englewood, CO, Cherry Creek) and Chris Walsh (Boulder, CO, Shining Mountain Waldorf School) scored nine points apiece for Knox with the victories. Chen placed first in the 100 yard butterfly and Walsh won the 100 yard backstroke, a race that featured three other swimmers, in a time of :58.05. He defeated the runner-up, Jonah Macke-Booth of IC, by 77-hundredths of a second.
The winners for the Knox women’s team were sophomores Madeline Troy (Naperville, IL, Naperville North) and Colleen Shelly (Galesburg, IL, Galesburg), junior Marie Anderson (Pleasant Hill, CA, Athenian School), and senior Anna Claypool (Portland, OR, Lincoln). Anderson and first-year Taylor Wayment (Littleton, CO, Lakewood) also earned second place finishes in other contested events.
Troy placed first in the 1650 yard freestyle in 20:56.55, well ahead of the Lady Blues’ second place time of 22:44.39 by Angie Martin. Anderson won the 200 yard freestyle in 2:19.21, which was 2.04 seconds ahead of IC’s Kelsey Tucker. Shelly had an impressive victory among the eight competitors in the 100 yard freestyle. Her winning time of 1:00.37 was more than eight seconds faster than Tucker, the runner-up. Claypool also had a large margin of victory in the 500 yard freestyle, which had five swimmers vying for points. She earned nine points for the Prairie Fire with her time of 6:15.65, which was 17.61 seconds ahead of the second place next swimmer.
Wayment scored four points and placed second among the five swimmers competing in the 50 yard freestyle, a race that was decided by a mere 4-hundredths of a second. Wayment finished in :28.50 compared to Illinois College’s Katia Swane-Barzowski, who placed first in :28.46 – one of two events she won in the meet.
Anderson also tallied four points in the 100 yard backstroke with a second place finish and time of 1:11.02 that was 1.53 seconds behind winner Audrey Brauer of IC.
The Prairie Fire women’s 200 freestyle relay team that beat IC and scored 11 points finished in a time of 1:53.18. The swimmers were Wayment, Anderson, Shelly, and first-year Maddie Boehm (Kenosha, WI, Harborside Academy).
The next meet for the Prairie Fire swimming teams is a dual at Monmouth College on January 19 at 1:00 p.m.
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