At the 3rd annual “Battle of 1709,” the defending Texas 5A State Champions from Southlake Carroll took on a team of All-Stars from Keller’s four high schools. “1709” refers to the name of a main route in the area between the northern Dallas suburbs of Southlake and Keller.
Read the back-story here.
Full meet results here.
In the girls’ meet, the Keller All-Stars topped Southlake Carroll 183-132 to give the Southlake Carroll girls their first dual meet loss of any kind in over three years. That snaps a streak of 52-straight meets, dating back to the fall of 2009.
The Southlake boys, however, stretched their streak to 53-straight by winning the meet 206-103 over the Keller All-Stars, which in the unofficial combined score gave Carroll the overall win.
“Our Southlake Carroll Girls raced well,” head coach Kevin Murphy said, “but the Keller ISD All-Star Girls dominated the top end results of the meet. Congratulations to them for breaking our streak.”
The Keller girls won 7 out of the 8 individual events in an impressive performance. Given that the most recent record-book that anyone could find for 20-yard high school swimming was before National Records were kept for girls, the staffs proclaimed these unofficial National Records for girls’ high school swimming.
In the boys’ meet, all but two records were broken. That includes a 1:38.73 in the 200 yard free from Texas commit Jonathan Roberts at a 26.28 in the 60 yard free from Luke Mankus. Roberts’ swim was five seconds better than the 1960’s record set by Don Schollander, who would go on to win five Olympic gold medals, including four in Tokyo when he was just 18 years old.
For those unfamiliar, this meet was held in a 20-yard pool, which generally speaking means faster results than if they’d swum the same meet in a 25-yard pool. That’s because even when the races are the same total distances, swimmers get more turns in the 20 yard pool.
In the girls’ meet, Laura Norman from Keller High School starred (she’s a senior commit to Texas A&M). She won the 200 free in 1:53.79, and also picked up the victory in the 100 yard free in 53.29.
Keep in mind the timing of this meet in Texas: though Arizona and Florida are running high school meets, it’s still very early in Texas (more than three months to go still until the state meet).
“It was an exciting meet, with many good races and plenty of ‘team’ excitement and enthusiasm for an early season meet,” Murphy said of the atmosphere. “The 20 yard pool was a big hit at this high school dual meet competition.”
All five teams will now prepare for the North Texas TISCA Invitational in two weeks at The Colony Natatorium. These TISCA Invitationals are held around the state mid-year, this season with 8 sites, and are some of the fastest in-season high school meets in the country.