SPRINGFIELD - Edwardsville's Logan Mills and Alton's Noah Clancy qualified for next week's state swimming and diving meet with wins in their events, while the Tigers put two of their relay teams into the state meet with wins in their races as Edwardsville won the IHSA Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin Catholic sectional meet Saturday at Eisenhower Pool.
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The Tigers won with a total of 235 points, edging out Chatham Glenwood, who came in second with 233.5 points. O'Fallon was third with 142 points, Jacksonville fourth with 63 points, coming in fifth was the host Cyclones, who scored 54, Springfield High and Springfield Southeast tied for sixth with 28 points each, and Jacksonville Routt Catholic came in eighth with 12 points. The other area teams who competed, including Alton, Granite City, Marquette Catholic and Father McGivney Catholic, Collinsville and Triad, did not score.
Mills qualified by winning the 100-yard butterfly at 53.20 seconds, the only Tiger individual to go through. Clancy qualified in two events, the 200-yard individual medley, winning the event with a time of 1:54.49, and the 100-yard backstroke, also winning the event at 50.54 seconds. The Tigers also qualified their teams in the 200-yard medley relay, with the team of Matt Doyle, McLain Oertle, Mills and Evan Grinter winning with a time of 1:37.22, and the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Mills, Owen Gruben, Grinter and Oertle winning the race with a time of 1:29.84.
A notable event happened in the 100-yard freestyle, as event winner Carter Nelson of Columbia broke the pool record previously held by Olympic Gold Medalist Ryan Held as Nelson's time was 45.40 seconds in qualifying for state.
Mills finished second in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 21.98, just missing out on qualifying for the state meet in the event, while both Doyle and Grinter came in second and third in the 100-yard backstroke with respective times of 55 seconds flat and 56.11 seconds, both coming up short of making the state meet. The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Gruben, Andrew Billhartz, Noah Range and Doyle came in third with a time of 3:28.53, but did not qualify for state.
The state swimming meet is scheduled for next Friday and Saturday at Evanston High School in suburban Chicago, with the preliminaries set for Friday, and the finals going off on Saturday.
