This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Westlake's Craven Advances To State Swim Meet

Demons' senior wins 100 fly; divers Renkel, Sposet, relay team move on to Canton.

Westlake senior Joe Craven raced to the title in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 51.32 seconds and added a third-place finish in the 100 back with a clocking of 53.33 to lead the Demons to a 13th place finish in the Division I district championships held Saturday afternoon (Feb. 19) at Cleveland State.

He will be joined in Canton at the Division I state championships by Westlake divers Nate Renkel and Sammie Sposet, who each earned state meet berths earlier in the week at Cleveland State.

"We had our 200 medley relay drop 10 seconds," said Westlake coach Jessica Dye. "That seemed to set the tone for the day. We had all our swimmers set personal bests or season bests. Then we had Joe (Craven) win the fly and take third in the back."

Renkel got the final boys spot in Division I diving to the state meet with 366.90 points while Sposet was eighth on the girls side with 382.05 points where the top nine go to Canton.

Also receiving an automatic berth to the state meet is Demon senior Megan Splain, who took fourth in the 100 fly with a time of 58.08. Earlier in the meet, Splain was seventh in the 200 individual medley, coming out of the fourth of five heats with a 2:11.06. Splain just missed an at-large bid in this event as Twinsburg senior Amanda Knapp earned the last slot with a time of 2:10.75.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced the entire state championship field including automatic berths and at-large choices Sunday morning.

Another Demon swimmer who missed a chance of getting to the state meet with an at-large berth is junior Lauren Choban, who placed ninth in the 100 back with a time of 1:01.16. Westlake also had two others in individual events with senior Heather Smith going in two and sophomore Nora Lee in one.

Smith was 17th in the 200 IM with a 2:17.99 where Splain took seventh. Smith then placed 18th in the 100 free with a 55.36. Lee took 29th in the 200 free by hitting the wall at 2:02.96.

Westlake's girls had two relays reach CSU with both placing ninth at the district - with one advancing to the State meet.

The Demon 200 medley relay using Choban, Splain, Lee and Smith was ninth in 1:52.99. In the final event of the day, the same four Westlake girls swam the 400 free relay and were timed in 3:40.54. It was this team that earned the 24th and last available time slot.

Westlake also had senior Jack St. Marie in two distance events with the Demon tanker in the top 15 in both events. St. Marie was 15th in the 200 free with a 1:49.58 by coming out of the second of four heats and took 11th in the 500 free by dropping more than nine seconds from his sectional time with a 4:56.39.

Also advancing to the district for the Demons was Alex Lamorgese, who was 28th in the 100 back in 59.69.

Find out what's happening in Westlakewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Westlake