Lexington school breaks an 8-year-old swimming record at state meet. Twice.
St. Xavier High School for the 31st straight year won the boys’ team title at the Pannell Swim Shop/KHSAA State Swimming and Diving Championships held at the University of Louisville’s Ralph R. Wright Natatorium on Friday.
Lexington Catholic’s boys finished second overall, scoring 249 points as a team to the Tigers’ 482. Highlands finished third in the team standings with 194 points.
RESULTS FROM THE BOYS’s PANNELL SWIM SHOP/KHSAA STATE SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS
St. X swimmers won five of the 12 events. Lexington Catholic, the 7th Region team champ, won two events — the 200-yard medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay — posting a new state meet-record time of 1:21.96 in the latter, just hours later after setting the previous state record of 1:23.76 in the preliminary round (before LexCath’s preliminary swim the previous record, 1:23.87, was set by St. X in 2011).
Seniors Zach Hils, Matt Menke, Smith Dicken and Scott Scanlon were part of the record-setting 200 freestyle relay unit. Menke, Hils and Scanlon swam along with Thomas Strother as part of the 200 medley relay.
Lexington Catholic last year won the combined team title, ending a drought of 15 years between state team titles for Lexington schools. Its defend that crown during the girls’ state championships on Saturday.
Elizabethtown’s John Hayes, a freshman, was the only winner from a public school on Friday. He claimed the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:31.48, just a couple seconds in front of Henry Clay senior Matthew Street (4:33.32).
