5A girls swimming: Cherry Creek wins third state championship in a row
THORNTON – The three-peat is complete.
At the Class 5A girls swim and dive state championships on Friday night at Veterans Memorial Aquatics Center, the Cherry Creek girls posted an overall score of 448 points to win the state championships. The Bruins have now won the last three 5A team titles and have won 29 overall, which is the most in the state’s history.
On the sport’s 50th anniversary as a Colorado High School Activities Association-sanctioned sport, it was fitting that the state’s most decorated program would rise to the top once again.
“We love our swimming and we always kind of rise to the occasion,” Bruins head coach Karin Olmsted Dinsdale said. “It definitely is a part of our culture at Creek that the expectation is real for us to produce winning championships but also have fun. That’s the biggest part of this. It’s high school sports, so we make it fun and try to do a lot of fun things that take the pressure off like smile and dance and be goofy. That’s part of being a high school girl, so that’s important too.”
Perhaps the highlight of the entire evening, Cherry Creek’s 200 freestyle relay team – Alexis Greenhawt, Lawson Ficken, Ana Loveridge and Charlotte Wilson – swam a time of 1 minute, 30.81 seconds that broke the Colorado state record that was previously set at 1:33.00 by Cherry Creek in 2022. That time was just 11 hundredth of a second slower than the national record. The Bruins had also already set a Class 5A state record (1:32:82) in the preliminaries on Thursday.
The Bruins relay squad of Greenhawt, Ficken, Loveridge, and Teagan Steinmetz also won the 400 freestyle relay with a time of 3:23.66.
Ficken, a senior, won the 50 freestyle in 22.64 seconds, and was followed in second place by Greenhawt’s time of 22.84. Ficken also won the 100 freestyle in 48.77 seconds, which is 32 hundredths of a second off Missy Franklin’s 5A state record of 48.45 that has stood since 2012.
“It feels so good. It feels as good as the first time we won,” Ficken said. “I’m just really lucky to be swimming with these girls and I’m really proud of everyone. It’s been a really, really good day, so I’m happy.”
Cherry Creek – Charlotte Wilson, Katie Cohen, Maren McDonald and Alana Maxey – opened the evening by winning the 200 medley relay with a time of 1 minute 41.77 seconds. In the 10th event of the night, Wilson, a junior, returned to the pool and won the 100 backstroke with a time of 52.95 seconds.
Cherry Creek senior Katie Cohen was voted Swimmer of the Year by the coaches.
The Regis Jesuit Raiders, who last won a state title in 2014, finished runners-up with 367.5 team points. Junior Charlotte Burnham was the Raiders’ lone individual champion, winning the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:02.40. Regis Jesuit coach Nick Frasersmith was voted Coach of the year by the coaches.
Joining the 5A ranks this year after winning back-to-back titles in 4A the past two seasons,
Heritage finished third with a score of 321. Eagles senior Mary Macauley claimed the 200 IM championship with a time of 2:00.67.
Fairview was fourth with 298 team points and Grandview was fifth with 233.
Boulder senior Zara Zallen won the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:48.58.
Fairview senior Edith Simecek touched the wall in 53.57 to claim gold in the 100 butterfly.
Legacy senior Sabrina Rachjaibun won the 500 freestyle in 4:55.89.
On Tuesday, Denver East’s Morgan Manley won the diving competition.
CHSAA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first girls swim and dive championship held in 1973. Throughout the championships, Colorado high school girls swimming legends will be handing out the awards.
