The defending Texas High School 5A girls State Champions Austin Westlake began their title defense last week with a dual meet against District 14 rivals Austin Bowie.
While Westlake are the defending 5A champions, this season they will be fighting for the newly created 6A crown, as the entire Texas high school system has grown by a level, but the sentiment of being the title for the biggest schools remains the same.
Westlake took the title last year over Southlake Carroll by a single point, and with a team almost entirely built around a freshman class, are the favorites to repeat in 2015.
Defending 100 fly state champion Victoria Edwards didn’t swim her signature event. She instead raced the 100 backstroke (58.39), which her coach Steve Navarro says she probably won’t swim at the state meet.
Meanwhile, Dakota Luther won that 100 fly in 58.02. Luther is the daughter of 1996 Olympic gold medalist Whitney Hedgepeth.
Among other standout swims:
- Bowie’s Frisco Koelling won the boys’ 100 free, beating out Westlake’s Nick Carlson (49.31)
- Westlake’s Brock Jones won the boys’ 100 breaststroke in 1:04.48, part of a Westlake 1-2-3 finish.
- Westlake’s Kevin Fang topped the boys’ 100 fly in 53.64.
It is a long season and Kingwood HS will have a very good Girl’s team with ALL of their 2014, 3rd place Girl’s Team returning. Southlake Carroll HS is reloaded and looking forward to an excellent year also, so the Texas 6A Girl’s State Meet should be an exciting race. Don’t hand out the 1st place trophy just yet….
Frisko Dike!
Incredible group of girls with Edwards leading it. Will be interested to see the new relay lineups with the loss of the senior class. On a side note, what year is frisco koelling?
Frisco is a Junior
So, in Texas, high school swimming starts in the fall and goes into the winter? In Virginia, public school can’t even begin practice until the second week of November this year, with state championships somewhere around February 20th.
Thetroublewithx – yep. Season starts with the school year and goes until February for the UIL public school league. He private school leagues are slightly shorter but follow basically the same patterns.
West Lake will be tough…crazy depth with Luther joining last year’s amazing freshmen class. Plus, soph Regan Barney doesn’t even swim for the team, just her club.