MARYSVILLE — Check two goals off of their list.
With a 107-76 win over a previously unbeaten Oak Harbor team on Jan. 29, the Tomahawk swim crew wrapped up an undefeated season and came away with the league championship.
While any meet win requires a team effort — and Marysville had multiple swimmers and divers step up, winning 10 of 12 events to seize victory — this meet also featured marquee individual showdowns.
Familiar rivals Trevor LeValley of Marysville and John Hu of Oak Harbor clashed last season at the state meet in the 200 individual medley. LeValley won preliminaries, but a day later, Hu won the finals to be named state champion in the event. While LeValley skipped the 200 IM against Oak Harbor, the two competed in the 100 backstroke. Neither swimmer gave an inch and the swimmers turned to the scoreboard to find out the winner. LeValley eked out the win by a slim margin, breaking his own school record with a time of 54.95. Hu was just behind him in 55.03, both times well under the 57-second state requirement.
Those kind of performances proved characteristic of both teams. In the 200 medley relay that began the meet, Marysville edged the top Oak Harbor relay by almost two seconds with a time of 1:41.52. That Oak Harbor relay was also well under the state time of 1:45.30.
In addition to winning the backstroke, LeValley won the 100 butterfly, making him one of three Tomahawk swimmers to win multiple individual events. Junior Oliver Durand swam state times in his winning 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle races. Senior Gabe Lopez was just a hair over state times in his 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle wins, just three-100ths of a second in the latter case.
M-P junior Zach Russell led the Tomahawks to an uncontested sweep of the diving competition, while sophomore Spencer Girard won the 100 breaststroke.
The boys bookended the night with a win in the 400 freestyle relay, complementing their 200 medley relay win in the opening event.
The JV championships take place Feb. 5 at Kamiak with districts beginning a week later at Marysville, running Feb. 12 through Feb. 14.
