Six Individual Meet Records Highlight Missouri’s COMO High School Invitational

2017 BOYS COMO INVITATIONAL

• October 7, 2017
• Mizzou Aquatic Center, Columbia, Missouri
• Prelim/Final, 11-Dive Format
• Short Course Yards
• Full Results
• Full Team Scores

2017-18 is the first year that Missouri high school swimming will be divided into two classes at the upcoming MSHSAA Championships, making the boys COMO Invitational one of the few opportunities for cross-class rivalries to continue and for the top athletes in the state to race no matter the size of their school. The University of Missouri is considered the fastest water in the Show-Me State and the one-day prelim/final format always invites an atmosphere primed for inspired racing as evidenced by the six individual Meet Records and one relay mark that were erased in this year’s meet.

Team Scores (top five):

1. Cape Girardeau Central
2. St Louis University High
3. Lee’s Summit North
4. Kearney
5. Liberty

Action began with the defending State Champions and State Record holders, the Cape Girardeau Tigers, holding on for the 200 Medley Relay win against a hard charging squad from Lee’s Summit North. The team of Jacob Bening, Sam Hahs, Brogan Davis and Truman Vines gathered enough of a lead on the first three legs that the blazing 20.61 split form North’s anchor Liam Bresette was not enough.  Cape won the event 1:35.13 to LSN’s 1:35.53.

Bresette, one of the very few athletes in the meet racing in a brief, stepped up to shine in the very next event. The Arizona State commit lowered his own 200 freestyle Meet Record from 1:40.60 to 1:39.68, leaving over two seconds of space between him and the rest of the field. Bresette would later go on to also erase the Meet Record in the 100 freestyle, lowering Reagan Ragsdale’s 46.19 from 2016 down to 45.70.

Recent Auburn commit, Brogan Davis, also lowered two Meet Records, starting with the 200 IM where he reduced Sam Drew’s 2016 mark of 1:52.57 by well over a second while finishing six seconds ahead of the pack in 1:51.33. Later in the meet, the Cape Central standout lowered his own 100 fly mark to 49.09.

Kearney’s Grant Sloan dominated a strong heat in the 50 Free that was loaded with seven athletes below the 22 second barrier. His 21.16 winning time was just shy of his Meet Record 20.91 performance from the prelims.

The sixth individual Meet Record of the night came from St Louis University High’s Barclay Dale who took nearly a half second from AJ Iseman’s 2015 Standard in the 100 backstroke, touching in 51.28 seconds.

Additional highlights:

• Hunter Grannum from the Mary Institute Country Day School (MICDS) won the 1-meter diving event by over 90 points with his final score of 535.65.
• Cape Central’s Daniel Seabaugh and Kearney’s Evan Holt were just .01 apart with 50 yards remaining in the 500 freestyle, with Seabaugh going on to take the win by out-touching Holt, 4:40.15 to 4:40.37.
• The Kearney Bulldogs team of Sloan, Holt, Carter White and Austin Wolfe combined to win the 200 free relay in 1:28.43, beating Runner-Up Cape Central by just over half a second.
• Cape Central’s Sam Hahs brought home the 100 Breast with the quickest second half split in the field, sneaking past Daniel Worth from Lee’s Summit North to take the win by exactly two tenths at 57.48.
• The Cape Central Tigers squad of Hyrum Dickson, Bening, Davis and Seabaugh ended the night with another Meet Record in the 400 free relay with 3:10.58, once again holding off an unreal split from LSN’s Bresette who cranked a 44.90 to make it interesting.

The MSHSAA Championship is just four weeks away, with Class 1 Finals set for Friday, November 3rd and Class 2 finals Saturday, November 4th.