Canfield, Spartan pool stars seek trip to finals

February 25, 2011 at 12:09a.m.

Child prodigies usually announce themselves early in music or chess, but they’re pretty common in sports like swimming, which is why it wasn’t that odd to see Canfield’s Gavin Trebilcock (now a senior with the Cardinals) or his older brother Garrett (now a freshman at Ohio State) have so much success as freshmen with the Cardinals.

Canfield seniors Drew Welham and Ryan O’Malley weren’t like that.

“I got last in all my events my freshman year,” O’Malley said, chuckling. “I would swim in the slowest lane. I think it’s safe to say I was one of the worst guy swimmers on the team.”

Welham remembers being a freshman who looked up to upperclassmen like Ryan King, Eric Davis and James Hunter and thinking, “I’ll never be that good.”

“I was one of the least talented guys on the team,” he said. “I never pictured myself as being good enough to make it to state.”

Three years — and a whole bunch of hard work later — Welham and O’Malley are team captains on a Cardinals team that advanced two relays to this weekend’s state meet at Branin Natatorium in Canton.

O’Malley will swim breaststroke and Welham will swim butterfly on the 200 medley relay, which is seeded 14th entering this morning’s preliminaries. They’ll be joined by junior Mark Dalvin (freestyle) and Trebilcock (backstroke), who will also swim two individual events, the 200 IM and the 100 breast.

Trebilcock, O’Malley, Dalvin and sophomore Nick Montalvo will swim the 200 free relay, which is seeded 18th.

This is the fifth straight year Canfield has advanced two relays to Canton.

“We didn’t want to be the senior class that ruined that tradition,” said Welham. “That’s the goal for all the senior classes coming through Canfield.”

The other goal is to swim in Saturday night’s finals, which is reserved for the top 16 in each event. The top eight in each preliminary advance to the finals, while 9-16 swim in the consolation finals.

Only 24 qualify for the state meet in each event.

“It’d be awesome if we could make finals,” O’Malley said. “Every swimmer’s goal is to drop their time and if we do that, we’ll make the consolation finals.”

Boardman also has two boys relays competing this weekend. Sophomore Ryan Bailey and seniors Tommy Slagle, Mike Henson and Steven Moss will compete in the 200 free relay, which is seeded 17th.

Henson, Moss, Bailey and junior Alex Downie will swim in the 200 medley relay, which is seeded 22nd. Bailey will also swim two individual events: the 100 butterfly (where he’s seeded sixth) and the 100 breast (14th).

DIVISION II

In Thursday’s Division II preliminaries, McDonald senior Katie Joseph finished second in the preliminaries of two events.

Joseph finished the 100 free in 51.47 seconds, and the 200 free in 1:52.40 to advance to the finals in both events.

Also, Maplewood senior Jordan Moxley finished with the best preliminary time of 23.48 in the 50 free, and also advanced in the 100 free, finishing sixth in 52.24.

And, Lakeview senior Emilee Gysegem advanced in the 200 IM, finishing third in 2:06.96, and the 100 back, finishing eighth in 58.11.

The area’s lone boys competitor, senior Brian Stahl of Western Reserve, finished 22nd in the 100 free in 50.26, and did not qualify to Saturday’s finals.