Kingwood Park settles for bronze this time
SAN ANTONIO — After losing key seniors from its fifth state championship team in 2020, Kingwood Park won’t scoff at getting back to the podium in 2021.
The Panthers finished third at the UIL 5A boys swimming championships behind champion Frisco Wakeland and secondplace Georgetown.
It’s another year for one of Houston’s top swim programs to be proud of, especially after a layoff forced by the recent Texas winter storm and COVID-19 protocols.
“The big thing was to get on the award stand in all three relays,” Kingwood Park coach Greg McLain said. “We’re really excited about that and thrilled be back up with a third-place finish.”
The 200-yard freestyle relay was the big win for Kingwood Park. Logan Rushing, Frankie Zelasko, Zach Twomey and Chris Rosser turned in a time of 1 minute and 25.92 seconds to take gold in the event.
Kingwood Park’s team of Rosser, Carter Bennett, Rushing and Zelasko finished second in the 200yard medley relay at 1:34.32.
Angleton, which finished fourth in the team standings, wasn’t far behind with a fourth-place 1:35.07 from Abel Black, Ryan Fojtik, Aaron Black and Fynn Andrews.
Rushing, Bennett, Rosser and Zelasko finished third in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a time of 3:10.23.
An individual standout for Kingwood Park was Bennett’s fourth-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke at 57.45 And winning the 200-yard freestyle relay was a source of pride for the Panthers.
“We’ve got a pretty good history of sprinting at Kingwood Park, and we won it last year and these guys wanted to come back and defend their title,” McLain said . “That was one of the things we set
out to do in the beginning of the year. Just proud of the work they put in to come back and get it done.”
Fulshear gets first champion
Fulshear has its first state gold medalist with Jake Litchfield winning the 50-yard freestyle in 20.58.
The senior TCU signee won a close race in which the three medalists finished within .48 seconds of each other.
Litchfield finished second in the event at last year’s state meet, so he said winning it this time was special.
The other motivation for Litchfield was simple — stay COVID-19-free.
“It was pretty hard, especially the last few weeks before districts and regionals,” Litchfield said. “I tried to stay home instead of go to actual school, just to be safe. Didn’t want to chance that. It’s been a lot of work to try to get back, so I’m pretty happy.”
Litchfield also finished sixth in the 100-yard freestyle in 46.75.
Bottego, Ott earn medals
La Porte senior Allen Bottego took third in the one-meter diving competition with a score of 536.20. And the third time was the charm for Magnolia’s Gustavo Ott.
His silver in the 500yard freestyle was the lone individual medal for a Montgomery County swimmer Saturday evening.
Ott, a senior in his third appearance at state in the 500, swam a school-record time of 4 minutes, 39.88 seconds to win second place and his first career medal at the state meet.
Ott was concerned after his 200-yard individual medley performance earlier in the meet didn’t quite go his way.
“It was about time,” Ott said of winning a medal. “It was scary because I didn’t do that good in my 200 IM, but once I went out (in the 500 free), I felt it and had to keep going.”
A year ago, Ott finished eighth at the state meet in the 500, and he took seventh in 2019.