Boys swim team wins fourth consecutive league title

The Osawatomie-Paola-Louisburg boys swim team celebrated its fourth straight ILC league title last Thursday in Osawatomie.

OSAWATOMIE – It wasn’t a new experience
for some of the swimmers Thursday when the Osawatomie-Paola-Louisburg boys
captured the ILC title for the fourth consecutive season.

But for the ones for Louisburg,
especially since this was their first go-around with the program, it was a
welcome addition to what has been an already successful season.

The Miami County team reclaimed
the ILC title with 457 points and won the seven-team meet going away at the OZone
in Osawatomie. Parsons was the next closest with 349 points and Piper was third
with 324.

“This win was a team win,” coach Gerri
Hart said. “Everyone on the team scored points this year.  All the boys
practice as a team everyday pushing each other to get better for this
meet. Their hard work paid off with this big win.

“Coach
Maddie (Carrigan) and I are so proud of the boys hard work and team spirit. My
favorite thing about this team and every team that came before this is that we
are one community working to improve together as swimmers and people, not three
schools.”

Justin Bradley and Theo Hebert had a pair of league titles to lead the Miami County squad. Bradley won the 200-yard freestyle in 2 minutes and 2 seconds and was also victorious in the 500 freestyle in 6:00.

Hebert captured the 100 butterfly
in 1:00.60 and later won the 100 backstroke in 1:03.44.

Louisburg freshman Braden Branine captured the first individual swimming league title in school history as he won the 100 breaststroke in 1:14.44. He also took fourth in the 200 individual medley.

This is Louisburg’s first year with the boys swim program.

Branine, along with Bridger Baus,
Remington Rice and Cole Brown, won the school’s first league relay title. The
four Wildcat swimmers won the 200-medley relay in 1:56.03.

Baus finished runner-up in the 100
butterfly in 1:05.63 and later finished fourth in the 100 backstroke in
1:06.92. Brown also had a big meet as he took second in the 200 individual
medley in 2:30 and was fourth in the 100 breaststroke.

Another Louisburg freshman,
Brayton Brueggen, finished runner-up in the 500 freestyle in 6:01. Rice had a
pair of fourth-place finishes in the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly. Isaiah
Waggerman was third in the 200 freestyle in 2:14.

In the relays, Bradley, Brown, Hebert and Waggerman took second in the 400 freestyle, while Baus, Hebert, Waggerman and Bradley finished third in the 200 freestyle.

Other Louisburg swimmers to compete were Drake Baus, Sam Bradley, Drake Burdine and Cooper Hipp.