Madison’s girls’ swim and dive team celebrates winning the Virginia 6A Northern Region title (Mia O’Neill/The Washington Post)
Going into this weekend’s Virginia 6A North region swim and dive championships, James Madison head coach Andrew Foos felt confident. His girls’ team, the reigning state champ which also finished first at last year’s regional competition, returned almost its entire squad.
“We didn’t graduate anybody that swam at regions or states last year,” Foos said. “So we had our whole team come back.”
This familiarity, plus the addition of some talented new swimmers, helped propel Madison to another dominant first-place finish on the girls’ side on Saturday. The Warhawks rolled to victory with 361.50 points, ahead of Oakton (271) and Yorktown (222.50).
“Our team is just filled with really, really talented girls,” Foos said.
Madison won the boys’ title, as well, finishing the night with 291 points, ahead of second-place Langley (285). Oakton came in third with 214 points.
Though Foos considered the boys’ win to be slightly more of a surprise (the Warhawks finished third in regionals and second in states last year), sophomore Anna Keating thinks chemistry has been a big factor for both teams this year.
“We always have such a positive vibe, and we work as a team together,” Keating said. “No negative thoughts going around — we’re always just pumping each other up.”
Keating was central to Madison’s success, helping the Warhawks to a win in the 200-yard medley relay, and earning individual first place finishes in both the 100-yard breaststroke — in which she broke a meet record — and the 200 yard IM, which ended in a dramatic tie between her and Yorktown’s Victoria Huske.
Keating, who was considerably behind Huske for much of the contest, made a stunning comeback during the freestyle leg, and the race ended with both swimmers finishing within the same hundredth of a second (2:01.72).
“Usually I catch up in the breaststroke, but she was still so far ahead of me. So in the freestyle I just put my head down and swam,” Keating said. “We tied, and she’s amazing, so it was a lot of fun.”
On the boys’ side, Oakton freshman Anthony Grimm was a revelation, winning titles in both the 100-yard butterfly (49.24) and the 100-yard backstroke (48.96), and helping Oakton to a win in the 200-yard medley relay.
“I was pretty nervous, because it was my first regionals. I didn’t know what to expect,” Grimm said. “But I had a lot of confidence coming off districts. And then the whole team — how could you be nervous when you have a whole team cheering you on? So it was fun.”
Grimm’s teammate, Daniel Gyenis, also had a night to remember, capturing titles in the boys’ 200 and 500-yard freestyle events, while Langley’s Casey Storch earned big wins in the boys’ 200-yard IM and the boys’ 100-yard breaststroke, an event in which he came within a hundredth of a second of the meet record with a time of 55.19.
Centreville’s Lexi Cuomo and Battlefield’s Emily Hetzer both had big nights as well. Hetzer won the girls’ 200 and 500-yard freestyle, while Cuomo was champion in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly.
Earlier this week, Madison’s Sam Duncan won the boys’ one-meter diving competition with a score of 542.00, taking over the title that his brother Greg claimed last year. Yorktown’s Hannah Karlin placed first on the girls’ side with a score of 410.65.