The nation’s largest swim meet, the Southwest Ohio Coaches Classic, involves over 100 schools, nearly 3,000 athletes, and takes place in nine locations, including Miami University, Mason, Countryside YMCA, and St. Xavier for the finals.  The meet, along with its many locations, took place over two days, January 17 and 18.

The 18 Aqua Panther swimmers swam at Miami for the preliminary swims.  The tournament is set up as a preliminary to final format.  This means all the times are gathered from all locations and the top 16 times move into the finals.  Each event also has two alternates in case of a scratch or a no show swimmer.  The alternates are taken as the 17th and 18th fastest times.

Elder had a successful day with their talent, including swimmers setting 20 new best times.  In the preliminary swims, junior Duncan Kelley broke the one minute mark with a :57.83 time in his 100 freestyle.  Freshman Eric Bley and sophomore Bryan McGrail also showed improvements, approaching sub-minute marks in the 100 freestyle.

Elder impressed in the 100 Individual Medley, having the top three times in their preliminaries.  Sophomore Paxton Kelley finished first followed by seniors Jack Smith and Adam Vale respectively.  Kelley and Smith both qualified for the finals, but Smith had to scratch.

Paxton Kelley was the only Elder swimmer to qualify for the finals.  Kelley swam for Elder in the 100 Individual Medley and the 50 Backstroke.  In the 100 IM finals, Kelley finished in seventh with a 1:00.87 time.  Kelley finished in seventh out of 168 total swimmers for the whole weekend.  In his final event Kelley swam and came in third for the 50 Backstroke, just eight one-hundredths of a second in front of freshman Nicholas Czepukaitis from St. Xavier.  The third place finish was out of a whopping 369 total swimmers for the weekend.

In the diving portion of the event, Elder’s lone diver, sophomore Jake Wells also made the finals.  Wells finished in 14th place with the judges 304.35 score.

In the end, St. Xavier won the entire meet with 661 points.  The runner-up, Seven Hills, had 273 points.  Elder finished in 38th place overall with three points, but the performances were better than a stat sheet.  Some schools, like St. Xavier have the luxury of an on-campus pool and training facilities.  The Aqua Panthers worked hard and all swimmers improved and made a statement that Elder has some talent.  The trophy case might not be full, but the hearts in the pool are.