The Gainesville High School girls team finished ninth with 92 points Friday night at the FHSAA 3A State Swimming & Diving Championships at the FAST pool in Ocala. It was their best finish since 2017 when they finished eighth.
Senior Lilah Kage earned her second podium finish of her career with a seventh-place finish (355.20) and sophomore Emma Stripling took ninth (337.85 points) in the 1-meter diving event to start the Hurricanes off on the right foot.
“Lilah and Emma have been diving amazing this year, so for them to get seventh and ninth was just huge,” said Gainesville coach Leonard Kraus of their fast start.
Coming into the meet, much of the Canes’ hopes relied on defending 200-yard freestyle champion Ava Fuller, a senior, who was entered in the 200 freestyle, 500 freestyle and two relays.
In her first event, Fuller had a new formidable competitor to contend with. St. Pete freshman and world junior open water champion, Brinkleigh Hansen swam 1 minute, 47.91 seconds in the morning preliminaries to lead all qualifiers. The time was better than Fuller’s personal best time of 1:49.10. Hansen is coached by former Florida Gator and Olympic and World Championship gold medalist Bobby Finke’s father, Joe.
In Friday night’s final, Fuller finished third in the 200 freestyle with a new personal best of 1:48.09 to finish just shy of Hansen’s winning time of 1:47.12. Her time earned her automatic All American honors, the top 100 high school swimmers in the country, for the second year in a row.
“I was focusing on the 200 because I thought it was my best chance to do well,” she said afterward. “I was trying to stay with the top three girls because I usually go faster when I go out fast. I felt pretty good actually going out. I PR’ed [personal record] by over a second over last year.”
Fuller came back in the 500-yard freestyle and finished sixth in 4:55.32 to earn All American consideration honors.
“I think my 500 definitely could have been a little bit better. I was pretty gassed from the 200-yard freestyle and the 200 freestyle relay,” she said.
In addition to Fuller, Kage and Stripling’s contribution, the Cane’s earned points from freshman Lily Zhou in the 100-yard butterfly who finished 13th in 59.84, junior Kara Walters who placed 11th in the 100-yard (54.02) and 15th in the 200-yard freestyle (1:56.37), and 11th in the 200 freestyle relay (Walters, Zhou, Leehee Brauner and Fuller-at 1:41.38) and ninth in the 400-yard freestyle relay (Walters,Fuller, Zhou and Brauner-at 3:41.35).
“Ava really stepped up in the relays. She was a pretty good relay swimmer through the years, but this year she kind of separated herself swimming a 51 split in the 400 relay and 23 in the 200 free relay,” said Kraus of the Kentucky commit. “As I mentioned at senior night, I think she’s kind of put herself on the Mount Rushmore of GHS women swimmers here in the past 15 years. She’s going to be a hard one to replace.”
The team performance was one Kraus did not expect coming into this season. In addition to Kage and Fuller, the Canes will lose Brauner to graduation.
“This is one of the most fun meets I’ve been to in a while. It was just a quality group of girls,” said Kraus, whose team finished 12th last year with 47 points. “They just stepped up and did a wonderful job. It’s been fun, just seeing them develop, get faster and develop as people.”
Ponte Vedra claimed their fourth team title in a row with 312 points.
Buchholz girls place 13th in 4A championships
Buchholz girls finished 13th Saturday at the 4A State Championships with 39 points.
Peyton Brooks led the Bobcats scoring 27 of those points. The promise she showed as a freshman saw tangible results Saturday as she collected the first two medals of her career in the 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke.
“After the morning, I was really hyped because I got to see a best time that really motivated me and helped me in finals,” said Brooks.
In the morning preliminaries, Brooks lowered her personal best in the 100-yard fly by .26 seconds and in the final lowered another .47 seconds to take fifth in 56.02.
In the 100-yard backstroke, she lowered her time by .01 seconds, 56.14, in the preliminaries before finishing sixth in the finals in 57.07.
“I think my season was really good,” Brooks said. “My time drops were really good. It showed how much work I had put in and I’m really happy with the time I got.”
Also earning points for Buchholz was Mazzie Moberly who finished 13th with a personal best of 5:09.04 in the 500 yard freestyle; the 200 freestyle relay team of Brooks, Emily Zhou, Katie He, Moberly who finished 15th with a 1:41.31; and the 400 freestyle relay team of Moberly, Brooks, He and Zhou who finished 15th with a 3:43.33.
In the boys competition, Buchholz finished 38th with 8 points. The 400 relay team of Sam Ospina, Andrew Caruso, Yufei Wang, and Isaac Rick came in seeded 20th and finished 13th in 3:18.46.