The Marvin Ridge girls and Chapel Hill boys each repeated as North Carolina high school Class 3A champions over the weekend in a meet highlighted by back-to-back event wins from Marvin Ridge’s Caroline Hauder.
Hauder won the 100 back and 100 breast, setting a new state record in the latter event, to help Marvin Ridge earn its title. On the boys side, Chapel Hill took home the team trophy thanks to three wins from Jake Pudik.
Full results available on Meet Mobile
Boys Meet
Chapel Hill won its second-straight Class 3A title, holding off Cardinal Gibbons by about 40 points. It was the freestyle events that were the difference-makers, with Chapel Hill sweeping the free relays and doing very well in the sprints.
Jake Pudik was central to that effort. Pudik won the 100 free with a 47.47, and swam on both winning Chapel Hill relays. On the 200 free relay, Pudik led off in 21.93 to help the team nip Concord for the title, 1:28.36 to 1:28.65. Also on the Chapel Hill team were Christopher Eron, David Batson and Emery Harwell.
He also led off the 400 free relay, which swam during the morning prelims session as a timed final. His 47.61 helped the team of himeself, Eron, Ang Li and Patrick O’Donnell go 3:14.44.
Pudik was also second in the 50 free, just missing an undefeated state sweep. Tucker Wall of Concord won that event with a 21.64. Pudik was 21.83.
Cardinal Gibbons got a pair of wins from Noah Cairns to take second as a team. During prelims, Cairns won the timed final 500 free, going 4:32.55. He returned at night to pace the 100 breast in 58.11.
Cairns, a future UNC Tar Heel, put that breaststroke to good use on the team’s 200 medley relay, which also won. His 26.21 split combined with Christopher Raymond, Shane Humphrey and Cothalee Watko to go 1:37.15, breaking the only Class 3A state record of the meet. The old mark was from Cardinal Gibbons’ 2011 squad, and stood at 1:37.95. Northern Guilford took second and was also under the old record with a 1:37.67.
Northern Guilford’s Jordan Reed came off that relay to win the 100 fly, going 51.34.
Corinth Holders got a nice meet out of Connor Blandford, who won once and took a narrow second in his other race. Blandford was 1:53.95 to win the 200 IM early on, and was 52.03 for second in the 100 back. Winning that race was West Henderson’s Jake Johnson, who went 51.83.
Other individual winners:
- Lucas Rhodes of Central Davidson in the 200 free: 1:42.88
- Connor Blandford of Corinth-Holders in the 200 IM: 1:53.95
- Jesse Mazen of Cuthbertson in 1-meter diving: 380.80
Girls Meet
Marvin Ridge set two state records and swept the final four events to power away with its second-straight 3A state title.
Most impressive had to be sophomore Caroline Hauder, who swam back-to-back-to-back races and won all three late in the meet to ice things for Marvin Ridge. Hauder first cruised to a 56.21 win in the 100 back, topping the field by 1.6 seconds. But she saved her best swimming for the second-half of her double, going 1:03.79 to sneak under the class 3A state record in the 100 breast. That former record belonged to future Notre Dame standout and current SwimSwam contributor Christen McDonough.
Hauder also helped the team’s 400 free relay earn a state title in 3:32.56. She anchored the team in 51.58, joining Lexie White, Alex Bonfilio and Abby House.
Update: The article originally noted that the 400 free relay and 500 free were swum as timed finals during the morning session, but only the early heats of the 500 were in that morning session. The story has been updated to reflect the correct timeline.
Outside of Hauder’s incredible triple, the meet was highlighted by a new class 3A 500 freestyle record. That went to Hickory sophomore Emmaline Peterson, who chopped over four seconds off her own state record with a 4:50.11. Peterson was the only swimmer under five minutes in the event.
Peterson also won the 200 free in 1:52.11, just touching out St. Stephens’ Maria Turcanu (1:52.30) and Cardinal Gibbons’ Emily Dykstra (1:52.33). Hickory also got a 100 free win from Anna Durak in 51.74.
Chapel Hill’s Claire DeSelm, the daughter of UNC Tar Heels coach Rich DeSelm, doubled up in wins as well. DeSelm took the 200 IM (2:04.84) and 100 fly (55.39), finishing not far off of class 3A records in both.
The only overall state record to fall was in 1-meter diving. Marvin Ridge’s Nikki Canale absolutely obliterated the mark, scoring 511.60 to lead a Marvin Ridge 1-2 of the event. The previous overall state record was 491.35 from Carrie Knoeber all the way back in 1996.
Marvin Ridge also won the 200 free relay in 1:39.50. That team featured Ashley Baum, Samantha Bitter, Kate Marshall and White, who split 24.01.
Other winners:
- Cardinal Gibbons’ team of Haley Allen, Olivia Allen, Emily Dykstra and Sammy Stone in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:48.34.
- North Lincoln’s McKenzie Weed in the 50 free with a time of 24.31.
Full team scores are unavailable.
North Carolina swam the 400 Free Relay as timed finals in the *evening* session. So Hauder’s feat was even more impressive. She swam *three* consecutive races in title form.
Moreover, only the first heat of 500 is in the morning. The top 2 heats are in the evening as well.
Interesting… Meet Mobile shows the 400 free relay along with the prelims events, but that could just be a quirk on the app. If she did swim all three back-to-back-to-back, that’s quite a state meet run!
My guess is that Meet Mobile doesn’t understand when you list an event in Prelims but mark it as Finals Only.
One of my joys in the swimming world is that I am the Public Address Announcer for all NCHSAA Swimming Championships. I saw Hauder’s back-to-back-to-back performance first hand. It was quite impressive to say the least.