SHORELINE — In a clash of speed vs. depth the latter lifted the undefeated Shorewood girls swim team to its biggest victory of the season.
The Thunderbirds edged Jackson 93-90 Oct. 7 at Shoreline Pool to remain tied with defending champion Kamiak atop the Western Conference South Division.
The teams combined for seven state-qualifying times and the lead flip-flopped three times over the final eight events in a seesaw battle that was decided by the last race.
“I knew it was going to come down to the wire,” Shorewood coach Susie McDowell said. “I knew we needed 92 points to win and when I scored it out conservatively with my best guess (before the meet), we ended up with 90.”
The Timberwolves defeated Shorewood the previous two seasons and went on to finish second behind Kamiak.
Facing Jackson has become the highlight of the regular season for the swimmers and McDowell, who started sketching out this year’s meet over the summer.
“It’s the most exciting meet of the year,” senior co-captain Hannah DeMerritt said. “I thought it was going to be close. I knew we all had to try as hard as we could.”
Jackson swimmers took first in 10 of 12 events — in some cases by a convincing margin — but the Thunderbirds prevailed by consistently placing second, third and fourth.
“If you win by a length, it doesn’t matter in a dual meet,” McDowell said. “It doesn’t matter how high-end your top swimmers are, because they only get six points. Jackson has a whole bunch of top-end (swimmers) and we have more depth. When you put the two together it’s a tough match.”
Shorewood also benefited from a crucial 13-point swing due to a 1-2-3 sweep by Kelsey Wright, Elle MacGeorge and Liz Gasperini in the 1-meter diving competition.
The Timberwolves no longer offer diving, but McDowell wasn’t going to put an asterisk next to her team’s win.
“It certainly would be great to win by 14 when we take 13 diving points. I feel badly they don’t have a program, but I’m not going to apologize that we do,” she said.
“It’s part of the meet. Until it’s no longer called ‘swimming and diving,’ the diving portion counts when you have a dive team. To give our divers credit, we have very good divers. Who knows how that event would have played out?”
Shorewood junior Leanne Dull clocked a pair of state-qualifying times only to place a close second to Jackson junior Amber Pleasant in both races.
Dull finished roughly a second behind Pleasant in the 100 freestyle with her mark of 55.19 and was edged by .06 of a second in the 200 freestyle with her time of 1:57.77.
The 50 freestyle was equally tight as Jackson’s Stephanie Ha held off DeMerritt by .07 of a second. DeMerritt also took second in the 100 butterfly.
“Everyone swam really well,” DeMerritt said. “Everyone had to swim their best for us to beat them.”
Shorewood charged ahead for good by placing first and third in the 200 freestyle relay. DeMerritt, Jennifer McCall, Angela Kim and Dull posted a winning time of 1:47.85.
In the 200 medley and 400 freestyle relays the Thunderbirds finished second and third — precisely what McDowell anticipated.
“Typically my style is more to (balance) all three relays and to have some really strong people on each one,” she said. “I knew in the medley relay, which is our weakest relay, we didn’t have a shot to beat them. I was hoping we’d get second and third, which we did.”
The Timberwolves opened the meet with back-to-back state-qualifying times and built a 10-point advantage through four events. After diving the lead disappeared and the Thunderbirds matched Jackson point for point the rest of the way.
“They knew they were swimming well,” McDowell said. “I knew they were going to feel good about the meet regardless of the outcome.”
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