(Chelsea Update would like to thank Andrew Thomson for the information in this story.)
The CHS boys swim and dive team had a full week of competition, traveling to Milan on Jan. 21, Ann Arbor Skyline on Jan. 23, and the Tecumseh Kiwanis Invite on Jan. 25.
While the Bulldogs fell to Milan 59-121 and Skyline 46-132, they were able to defeat undermanned White Division foe Ypsilanti 113-33 at Skyline. The Kiwanis Invite was not a team scored meet.
After the meet Thursday at Skyline, head coach Andrew Thomson said, “We are only able to compete 14-15 guys consistently right now, which puts an incredibly burden on those guys who are in the meets. Everyone has to swim their max load of events, and some of the strong guys are going to have to swim the tough events for us every meet, like the butterfly, the IM and the 500 freestyle.
“The guys are tired after this full week, but they also continued to perform and drop time despite being physically spent,” he said.
At Milan on last Tuesday, there were some key swims where the Bulldogs swam very well. In the 200 freestyle Parker Olk took the top spot (1:53.57) with Landen Collins taking third (1:55.89). Deaglan Krause earned third in the 200 IM (2:22.67). Zander Hartsuff beat all competition in the 50 freestyle (23.94). AJ Mitchell posted a runner-up finish in diving (119.30 points).
Olk also took the runner-up spot in the 100 butterfly (1:00.88). Landen Collins took the top spot in the 100 freestyle (51.81) and Zander Hartsuff finished third (52.69).
The 200 free relay team of Olk, Zander Hartsuff, Collins, and Krause took second (1:37.41), finishing less than three-tenths of a second behind Milan for the top spot. Fannin took second in the 100 breaststroke (1:13.41).
Against Skyline and Ypsilanti on Thursday, the Bulldogs came out ready to go. The medley relay team of Zander Hartsuff, Fannin, Olk and Krause took the runner-up spot (1:53.20). In the diving event, Olk took the top spot (155.90) and earned his wins to qualify for the diving regional. Collins finished in second (153.10).
The Bulldog 200 freestyle relay team of Zander Hartsuff, Olk, Krause, and Collins also accomplished another team goal, finishing first and earning the state cut (1:34.30).
The meet wrapped up with the 400 freestyle relay team of Rollen Zachrich, Dominik Green, Jaron Iannelli, and Collins posting a time of 3:46.79 to take the runner-up spot.
The busy week finished with the Kiwanis Invite hosted by Tecumseh. This meet was not a scored team meet, so the focus is always personal improvement and time drops.
Several Bulldogs were able to do just that.
In the 50 freestyle, Owen Critchfield dropped near a second and a half (27.48) and Joel Burke dropped over two seconds (27.70). Gabe Muckle dropped nearly four seconds (39.12) and Iannelli shaved off almost four-tenths (26.30) with Green dropping over a second and a half to post a 26.45.
In the 100 butterfly, Olk took the top spot, posting a 1:00.81, while Deaglan Krause was able to drop nearly two seconds to earn a final time of 1:01.88. In the 100 freestyle, Burke posted a four and a half second time drop to go 1:01.90 with Critchfield right behind him dropping over two seconds (1:02.19).
Zachrich also dropped nearly three seconds to post a 58.93, and Green was nearly 3 seconds quicker (1:00.16). Bram Hartsuff dove in for the 100 breaststroke and dropped nearly three seconds off his previous best time (1:24.13).
After a full week of competition last week, the Bulldogs will recover before traveling to Adrian High School on Jan. 30 and then Dexter for a re-scheduled freshman/sophomore Invite on Feb. 1.
