San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Boerne Champion girls finish third at state
AUSTIN — Boerne Champion’s girls may have lacked numbers, but that didn’t prevent the Chargers from garnering a podium spot following a third-place team finish at the UIL Class 5A state swimming and diving finals held Saturday at the Texas Swimming Center.
Freshman Kate Canales, sophomore Cora Skoog, junior Cameron Kellogg and junior Kate Deykin made up the Chargers’ contingent, and they scored 164 points to finish behind winner Frisco Reedy (194) and runner-up Lamar Fulshear (191).
“Overall, we kind of roll with four girls, and they’re just all very talented,” Champion coach Scott Slay said.
The foursome earned a gold medal in the opening event — 200-yard medley relay — with a time of 1 minute, 46.15 seconds. That set up the Chargers’ strong team performance.
“I think we’re all doing amazing,” Canales said. “We’re a really tight group, and we’ve been swimming with each for a long time on club. It’s fun to be able to swim relays as well as individual events. I love cheering my friends on because they do so well.”
They ended the meet with a second place finish in the 400 freestyle relay with a time of 3:32.44 that locked up a podium
spot.
Canales finished with four medals. In addition to her relay medals, she was second in the 100 breaststroke (1:02.61) and third in the 100 butterfly (56.19).
“She’s an incredible breaststroker and an amazing talent,” Slay said of Canales. “She does it very aggressively, and we’re just happy to have her.”
Skoog also earned bronzes in the 50 and 100 freestyles. After nearly false starting in Friday’s preliminaries, Skoog was happy to get on the podium in the 50 freestyle. She was able to block that near mishap in Saturday’s final.
“It was a great race,” Skoog said. “I worked really hard to get my mind in a good place. My
thing is I don’t think about anything. I just think about other things and not my race because when I think about my race, I tend not to do as well.”
The Chargers powered for the win in the 200 medley relay thanks to Canales’ strong second leg (breaststroke). Canales quickly made up for a slight deficit and had a good lead when
Cameron Kellogg dove in for the butterfly.
“We had a goal time in our mind,” Skoog said. “Kate got it started, and Cami, she did great, too.”
Canales was motivated for her leg.
“I’m a big competitor and I love to compete, so I just wanted to do the best that I could for my relay,” Canales said.
Champion’s girls weren’t school’s only gold medalists. The Chargers won the boys 200yard freestyle relay thanks junior Bexon Harrison’s anchor finish. Sophomore Will Harrison, Bexon’s brother, was even going into the anchor leg. Bexon passed Austin LASA’s anchor to finish in 1:25.27.
“I was nervous going into that, but when I saw Will was tied with their third leg, a lot of the nerves kind of went away and I knew that I had to execute and we’d win,” Bexon said.
The Chargers, who also had William Tolar and Jake Canales on the relay, earned gold after finishing second in the event the last two years.
“I was pumped, and I was happy that I was able to do it with these group of guys because they’ve been my best friends since I was seven or eight years old. To lose back-toback before this was tough, so this was pretty special.”
It was Bexon’s second medal as he also earned bronze in the 50 freestyle with a time of 20.65.