Lady Outlaws take district swim title

The Outlaws made a big splash at the 2013 District Championships last week.

Led by first-year coach Brittany Baldessari, the Outlaws broke four school records, advanced 16 of 20 swimmers to finals, and took home the district title for the girls.

The girls 200-yard medley relay (Katie Stewart, Karly Vial, Mary Stewart, Emily Christen) took second place, smashing the previous school record of 2:02.27 with a time of 1:58.53.

Also second was the boys 200-yard medley relay (Brennan Miller, Ian Baldessari, Tyler Berg, Caleb Johnson), finishing with a time of 1:51.45, only .50 of a second from the record set by Casey Meudt, Kyle Whipps, Justin Hedemark and Byron Womack in 2005. The show continued as Mary Stewart left the crowd in awe of her performance in the 50-yard freestyle, taking down yet another school record with a time of 25.86. Stewart later joined her sister Katie, along with Vial and Christen, to take down the third record of the day in the girls 200 FR relay with a first-place finish time of 1:46.63.

Ian Baldessari swam an outstanding race in the 100-yard breaststroke to shatter another school record. Baldessari dropped three seconds from his personal best of 1:11.77 finishing third with a time of 1:08.96.

While just about everyone swam personal bests, quite possibly the most surprising performances were those by both the girls and boys 400-yard freestyle relays.

The girls' team (Madelyn Zadow, Marcy Calavan, Natalie Marshall, Codie Lagao) finished with a time of 4:19.09, dropping a full 9.5 seconds from their personal best. The boys' team (Miller, Baldessari, Berg, Johnson) swam to a first-place finish with a time of 3:41.87, seven seconds faster than their personal best.

Four relays will be advancing to the OSAA State Championships this Friday and Saturday, including the girls 200-yard medley relay; girls 200 freestyle relay; boys 200 medley relay; and boys 400 free relay.

Also advancing are many individual swimmers, including Karly Vial in both the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle; Mary Stewart in both the 50- and 100-yard freestyle; Katie Stewart in the 200-yard individual medley; Ian Baldessari in the 100-yard breaststroke, and Brennan Miller in the 100-yard backstroke.

The OSAA State Championships will be held at Mt. Hood Community College. The Outlaws will compete in the 4A/3A/2A/1A session at 9 a.m.