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Cheyenne Mountain finds kick it needs to top Air Academy
Kadets have some fun, with relay team doing a little 'Tebowing'
Cheyenne Mountain rallied after Air Academy let loose with a little “Tebowing” on Saturday.
The Indians won five of the last six 4A events to overcome Air Academy’s quick start and take the 4A Metro title with a score of 573. The Kadets finished second with 532 and Discovery Canyon took third with 352.
“I knew it was going to be a close run,” Cheyenne Mountain coach Kate Doane said. “We have a pretty strong back half … So it kind of fell into place.”
Air Academy jumped into the lead early.
Its 200 medley relay ‘Tebowed’ on the podium after its anchor, Andrea Rice, won the 4A title (1:52.37) over Cheyenne Mountain by what was left of the crowd’s fingernails (1:52.53).
While she swims, Rice never looks straight ahead as she always keeps an eye on her competition — after she swims, she always looks at her coach.
“I looked at my coach and he was jumping up and down and pumping his fist,” Rice said. “So I knew we must have done good.”
The 4A Metro league swimmer of the year went on to win the 100 butterfly and the 50 freestyle by a fraction of a second to give Air Academy a sizeable lead halfway through the meet.
But Cheyenne Mountain remained confident.
“I think we’ll come back,” Indians’ swimmer Sydney Buckley said after Rice’s two wins. “We have good swimmers coming up.”
She was right.
Cheyenne Mountain won the next four events to take the commanding lead.
Buckley won the 100 freestyle, Morgan Wice followed with a first place finish in the 500 freestyle and both of them swam in the 200 freestyle relay team that won with a time of 1:40.83.
Emily Bauer sealed the win for Cheyenne Mountain with a first-place showing in the 100 backstroke.
“I think we all worked really hard for this meet and we expect to win it,” Bauer said. “I think there was a little bit of (nerves about winning the meet) because we have a couple swimmers out, but overall we believed.”
The Indians can’t celebrate long though, as their main goal awaits them 100 miles north in Thornton, the site of the 4A state meet.
“Our goal is top three, that’s for sure,” Doane said. “I really haven’t seen what our standings are, but we’ll just have to score as many points as possible.”
