Lamar's District Champion Swim Teams Eye Regional This Weekend

HOUSTON, TX — Lamar High swept the district swimming and diving championships last week over city foes. Now the Texans will compete in the Class 6A Region III meet this weekend in hopes to qualify for the state championships later this month in Austin.

The Lamar boys tallied 171 points to win convincingly over Strake Jesuit, which finished second with 119 points. The Lamar girls scored 202 points to wallop second-place Westside, which scored 152.

Lamar senior Ridge Livermore was the "Swimmer of the Meet" after winning the 200-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle. He swam leadoff on the 4x100 relay team that won by nearly three seconds over Strake Jesuit, and he swam the lead leg on Lamar's 4x50 relay that placed second, getting edged at the wall by Westside by just 0.23 seconds.

Livermore trailed Bellaire's Briggs Shiller going into the final stretch of the 500 freestyle, but the Lamar senior posted his best split of the race (25.80 seconds) to make up ground and win the race in 4 minutes, 37.48 seconds. Lamar's Nicholas Balbin placed fourth in the race at 5:03.31 to qualify for regionals.

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Lamar senior Avery Somma was named Diver of the Meet after scoring 349.55 points to win the girls diving event. Lily Abbott (272.50) finished second and Allison Bean (249.80) finished third for Lamar. Those three will advance to regionals. Abbey Thorne DQ'd in the preliminary rounds.

Somma posted 171.70 points in the preliminary round, with her best dive coming on an inward 1 1/2 somersault tuck. Combined with a 2.2 degree of difficulty, she scored 42.90 points on that dive alone with 6.5 scores from each judge.

On the boys' side of the meet, Lamar won two of the three relays. To kick off the meet, the Texans won the 4x50 medley relay in 1:40.18. The team of Jeff deGroot, Hank Huelskamp, Javi Hernandez and Carlon McClerkin teamed up to touch the final wall more than three seconds ahead of Strake Jesuit.

The boys 4x100 champions consisted of Livermore, deGroot, Nick Ho and McClerkin in a swim of 3:21.29 for gold, and the 4x50 team of Livermore, Wayne King, Hernandez and Holden Baird placed second after Hector Bayaborda of Westside swam an unbelievable anchor leg to give the Wolves a narrow win.

McClerkin, a senior, won the 50-yard freestyle race in 22.11 seconds. King also qualified for regionals with a sixth place finish. Javi Hernandez finished second in the 100 butterfly and sixth in the 200 IM for more regional qualifying. McClerkin won the 100 in 47.77 seconds, more than three seconds better than Reed Casper of Strake Jesuit. Wayne King placed fourth in the 100 and Alex Bujnowski was fifth.

Behind Livermore's heroic final kick in the 500 freestyle to narrowly win that race, Nicholas Balbin placed fourth, Richard Balbin was seventh and Josh Rojas was eighth.

deGroot and Ho took first and second, respectively, in the 100-yard backstroke and Holden Baird took sixth. Christopher Smith swam a solid 29.56 opening split to set a personal record and eighth place finish. deGroot finished third in the 200 freestyle for yet another regional berth and Nicholas Balbin finished seventh in the 200.

Josh Bowering finished third in boys diving with 249.80 points.

On the girls' side, Lamar won a relay and finished second in the other two. The young team of Megan Lewis, Xonzy Gaddis, Madeleine Baird and Robin Newberry combined to win the 4x50 relay in 1:45.14, which was more than three seconds faster than Bellaire.

The team of Lewis, Baird, Emma Krug and Annika Ruehlicke finished second in the 4x100 relay and the team of Rachel Marsh, Gaddis, Krug and Newberry placed second in the 4x50 medley relay behind district champion Westside.

Lewis finished third in the 200 freestyle while Abbie Child and Faith Morris placed fifth and sixth, respectively. Marsh placed third in the 200 IM and Gaddis was sixth.

The Lady Texans had a great showing in the 50 freestyle with four of the top five. Newberry was second, followed by Annika Long, Madeleine Baird and Gina Grieb to all qualify for regionals.

Emma Krug won the 100 butterfly while Juliana Gaddis placed fifth.

Lamar girls dominated the 100 freestyle, just like the shorter sprint in taking spots 2-5. Rachel Marsh finished second, followed by Baird, Long and Newberry.

Megan Lewis placed second in the 500 freestyle, Abbie Childs was third, Annahi Alfaro was fifth and Faith Morris sixth.

In the 100 backstroke, Emma Krug placed second, but her time of 1:00.89 puts her at No. 7 on the school's all-time list. Lucy Stickney was fourth, Olive Jensen-Morgan was sixth and Susana Flores eighth. Xonzy Gaddis was third in the 100 butterfly. Taylor Reeves was fifth and Kendyll Epstein was seventh.

Lamar coach Mac McDonald was the swimming coach of the year for both boys and girls. Lamar's Gamal Jones was the girls diving coach of the year.

The Lamar boys have now won eight-consecutive district championships and 35th district title in school history. The girls have won two straight district titles and 28th overall. This includes a stretch of 24-consecutive years of titles between 1991-2014.

Girls – Final Team Standings

Lamar Texans (202)
Westside Wolves (152)
Bellaire Cardinals (99)
Chavez Lobos (28)
Heights Bulldogs (12)

Boys – Final Team Standings

Lamar Texans (171)
Jesuit Crusaders (119)
Bellaire Cardinals (90)
Westside Wolves (90)
Heights Bulldogs (18)
Chavez Lobos (14)

TISCA Awards:

Girls’ Swimmer of the Meet
Emma Clark (Fr) of Westside

Boys’ Swimmer of the Meet
Ridge Livermore (Sr) Lamar

Girls’ Diver of the Meet
Avery Somma (Sr) Lamar

Boys’ Diver of the Meet
Michael Artlip (So) of Jesuit

Girls’ Coach of the Year
Mac McDonald of Lamar

Boys’ Coach of the Year
Mac McDonald of Lamar

Girls’ Diving Coach of the Year
Gamal Jones of Lamar

Boys’ Diving Coach of the Year
Scott Berger of Jesuit

Image: The Lamar swimming and diving team seniors after their district title last week are:

(Front row, from left) Charles Levy-Thiebeaut, Justin Bui, Faith Harding, Avery Somma, Carlon McClerkin, Kendyll Epstein, Faith Morris. (Back row, from left) Josh Bowering, Wyatt Sydow, Holden Baird, Alan Jeffreys, Xonzy Gaddis, Ridge Livermore, Henry Huelskamp, Gina Grieb, Rachel Marsh, Allison Bean, Brianna Burgan

Photo via permission from Lamar High School PTO