Metros, one of the biggest high school swim meets in the area, fuels competition between public and private schools. With so many different schools participating, spectators added a thrilling aspect to the meet, for the first time since 2020. The girls placed third and the boys tied for eighth.
Metros began with dive events where senior captain Arya Gupta finished 12th individually.
The girls started off the swimming portion of finals by winning the 200 medley relay and breaking the MCPS record with a time of 1:43.59. This relay included senior captains Sienna Karp and Maren Conze, junior captain Healy Morgan and sophomore Madeleine Simmons.
“It’s really cool. We broke the MCPS record last year in the 400 freestyle relay with the same people who got beaten this year at Metros, so it was nice to get another one,” Morgan said.
The 200 medley relay team also had a number of individual successes. Morgan finished fifth in both the 50 and 100 freestyle. Conze finished sixth in the 200 freestyle and second in the 100 backstroke where she broke the team record. Simmons finished third in the 200 individual medley (IM) and fifth in the 500 freestyle. Karp finished first in both the 200 IM and 100 breaststroke and broke MCPS records in both events.
“I knew this was going to be my big meet for the high school season. I was training in the beginning and then we all tapered and shaved down. Our relay was super ready to go. We’ve done that relay a ton. My IM was really close against Elenor (Sun), so she was pushing me. The record surprised me, I didn’t know that we were going that fast. The breaststroke was also a really good race. Isla (Bartholomew) got third, so having her next to me was a lot of fun,” Karp said.
On the boys side, senior captain Parker Koenig finished third in the 100 butterfly and fifth in the 50 freestyle.
“I wasn’t really paying attention to who was cheering, but more the environment as a whole was really cool. My third-place finish in the 100 butterfly was definitely surprising,” Koenig said.
The next championship meet for the Wildcats will be regionals on Feb. 16 and 18.
