Girls 14-And-Under Final Relay Secures Team Win

While storms raced through Jersey Shore on Thursday night, the swim team was safely tucked away in Central Columbia's middle school indoor racing pool.  Jersey Shore was able to pull out a team win, 5.5 to 4.5 and finish the season above .500 (4-3-1).  Results of this meet can be found here (boys) and here (girls). Other times can be found on the left hand side of the blog under archived meets.

There were 80 events in Thursday's meet and somewhere in those 80 events, the course of the meet was decided.  Who knew it would be one of the final relays to be the deciding factor.  While almost all the age groups score were decided going into the final relay, the 14-and-under girls were in the battle of the night. 

Yes, the foursome of Gabbie Moore, Briar Lehman, Emma Butzler, and Olivia Edler won the opening relay by over 4 seconds and Butzler captured the 50 and 100 yard freestyle while Moore touched the wall first in the 50 yard fly and back.  But the Blue Jays of Central Columbia won the 100 yard IM(Lauren Willie) and 50 yard breaststroke (Mallory Savage) plus numerous 2nd and 3rds in other events.  By the time the final relay rolled around, the Jays were up 33-31.

Moore led off the 200 yard freestyle relay and had a small lead after the 1st 50 yards over Central's Madison Crawford.  The lead vanished as Jillian Mott sped ahead of Shore's Briar Lehman.  In the third leg, Edler was playing catch-up and cut the lead down to about a body length.  Anchor Butzler was left to the task of erasing the rest of the deficit.  Giving chase, she was able to almost completely erase the gap by the turn and had to sprint the final 25 yards to touch the wall first by 76/100s of a second. 

This first place finish by Shore followed by Central Columbia, at this point, had Shore up 37-36.  If Central's #2 relay could come in ahead of Shore's #2 then they could knot up the score.  Not to disappoint the black-and-orange faithful, the relay of Elizabeth Osborn, Cheyenne Greene, Trynity Lehman, and Victoria Bellomo captured third place and secured the age group win (the same foursome also took third in the opening 200 medley relay).