5A girls swimming: Cherry Creek repeats, notches team title No. 28
THORNTON – The Cherry Creek girls swimming and diving team’s historical domination continues.
On Wednesday at Veterans Memorial Aquatics Center, the defending-champion Bruins claimed the Class 5A team championship for the second year in a row. With the victory, the Bruins have now won 28 team titles during the 48 seasons since the first sanctioned girls swimming and diving season in Colorado in 1974.
“There’s a lot of pride in this program,” said first-year head coach Karin Olmsted Dinsdale, who swam at Cherry Creek under recently-retired head coach Eric Craven. “I learned to win from Eric and I’m lucky to coach a lot of talent, but we got better this year and we had fun. I’m super proud of the tradition at Cherry Creek and of this group of girls.”
Amassing 502 team points, the Bruins beat out the runner-up Fairview Knights, who won back-to-back team titles in 2019 and 2020 and scored 397 points on Wednesday. Regis Jesuit was third with 349 points, Legacy was four with 303 and Fossil Ridge was fifth with 196.
Cherry Creek kicked off the finals with a win in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1 minute, 40.35. Later in the evening, the Bruins – Ella Turken, Lawson Ficken, Ana Loveridge and Elizabeth Brock – set the 200 freestyle relay state record (1:33.00), beating Fairview, which swam a time of 1:33.46 that was also faster than the previous record of 1:33.80.
Junior Alexis Greenhawt was the Bruins’ lone individual gold medalist, winning the 100 backstroke with a time of 54.03 seconds. Despite the program’s success, she is the Bruins’ first individual champion since 2012.
“It’s such an unreal experience to experience this with my team,” Greenhawt said. “There’s nobody else I would rather spend this moment with. We have a lot of talented girls on the team. Everyone is so talented, so fast. Honestly, it’s the training and Karin is amazing. We owe it all to her.”
Fairview’s Karolina Bank won the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:49.10 to help the Knights place second in the team competition. Knights senior Morgan Lukinac touched the wall in 22.74 seconds to win the 50 freestyle.
Fossil Ridge senior Lucy Bell set a state record of 1:56.41 in the 200 IM, breaking Olympian and Regis Jesuit graduate Missy Franklin’s previous time of 1:56.85 from 2013. Bell, who was voted 5A Swimmer of the Year by the coaches, also won the 100 freestyle with a time of 49.09 seconds.
Also for Fossil Ridge, senior Renee Gillilan won the 100 butterfly with a time of 53.24 seconds. The Sabercats also nearly set a record in the 400 freestyle relay, finishing the event with a time of 3:22.86.
In the 500 freestyle, Douglas County sophomore Mile Nikanorov swam a time of 4:55.86 to finish first.
Regis Jesuit senior Emma Weber won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:01.65.
Earlier in the day, Arvada West’s Geneva Pauly won the diving competition with an 11-dive score of 487.50.
Legacy’s Leigh Dodd was voted 5A Coach of the Year.
