U-High Lady Cubs win fourth consecutive title

Four state champions were crowed on the first day of finals at the LHSAA State Swimming Championship at the Sulphur Parks and Recreation Aquatic Center.

In the morning session, University High Lady Cubs continued their dominance in Division IV by winning their fourth consecutive title while St. Charles Catholic unseated three time defending champion University High for the boys' team title.

Leading the way once again for the Lady Cubs in their sixth title in seven years was freshman phenom Catherine 'Smacker' Miles. Four the third consecutive year, Miles racked up four state titles. What was more impressive is that she won three of them in the first three events of the day in the 200-yard medley relay, 200-yard freestyle and the 200-yard individual medley.

But University High head coach Jason Lewis said after the meet that their success was due to an all-round team effort.

"Our girls our outstanding," Lewis said. "They put together some fantastic individual swims but they did it as a team.

"The relays came through. My seniors came through. Ayuko Morikawa, Laura Furr put the best swims of their life together. We also had three girls go one, two, three in the IM. We really swam together as a team. Smacker Miles went back-to-back-to-back in the first three events, which is unheard of. On my guys’ side, we had lifetime best swims but we had 10 guys and St. Charles Catholic 22 guys. We had the quality but they had the quantity and they won the meet."

The St. Charles Catholic Comets won the boys' team title despite winning just one event, which was the 200-yard freestyle relay. It was the first state title for the Comets since winning back-to-back titles in 2002 and 2003.

"I think it went good," St. Charles Catholic head coach Michelle Jensen said. "Our strategy paid off of putting different swimmers in different events.

"We had four swimmers in each event for the finals except for one. Sometimes is the name of the game. We had some kids that finished in the top three which helped but I think as a team with our kids in different events is what definitely helped us here. We had a couple of great swims in the relays and they had some of their best times of the season. Overall we had a strong performance."

For Episcopal of Baton Rouge, it was another close call with out a title as they finished in the top three in both the girls' and boys' team standings. The Lady Knights finished as the runner-up for the third time in four years, while the Knights finish third after a string of three straight runner-up finishes to University High School.

"We knew coming in that U-High was strong," Episcopal head coach Kate Cramer said. "It is not so much the quantity but they have quality swimmers plus the numbers.

"We knew it would be hard beating them. We have a good quality team just like U-High but they have a few more numbers on us. We expect a lot of all the swimmers and they just performed well."

For the Episcopal boys', Austin Butler put together the meet of his life posting two All-American Consideration times and setting a record in the 50-yard freestyle. Butler swam the 50-freestyle in 21.29 seconds beat the old Division III record of 21.51 second set by Edmund Ring in 1994. Butler also had a CAA time in the 46.63 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle.

The Riess brothers of Newman School in New Orleans picked up three individual state championships between them and were part of the 400-yard freestyle relay championship team and the runner-up 200-yard freestyle relay team. Unfortunately, the elder Riess brother, Christian, did not set any new state records after setting two last year. Christian won the 200-yard IM and the 100-yard butterfly for the second consecutive year while freshman, Patrick won the 100-yard backstroke.