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Canfield collects five medals in D-II state swim meet
Brady’s bunch collects five medals in D-II state finals
By Joe Scalzo
Canton
Canfield senior Daniel Bogen ripped off his goggles, stared at the scoreboard and felt the weight of two disappointing races slide off him like … well, like water off his back.
He’d just anchored a state runner-up relay for the second straight year — out of the worst lane in the building, no less — and as he plunged underneath the water, he raised both hands up in a Hook ’em Horns gesture (index and pinky fingers extended), then broke the surface and started chopping the water with both arms.
A few feet above, on the swim deck, his teammates in the 200-yard freestyle relay kept yelling “Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!”
“I just felt awesome in the water,” Bogen said.
Out of it, too.
Thanks to big-time performances from Bogen, seniors Drew Bennett and Michael DiDomenico and, especially, junior Connor Brady, the Cardinals piled up five medals and 107 points to finish seventh at Friday’s Division II state swimming meet at C.T. Branin Natatorium.
“We’re really good under pressure,” said Bogen, who also anchored last year’s silver medal-winning 200 free relay. “When we have the eyes on us and we’re supposed to be swimming fast, we just do that. We’re ready to go.”
Bogen actually started Friday’s meet a little slow (by his standards, anyway), finishing seventh in the 50 freestyle and 13th in the 100 freestyle. And because he was in Lane 1, he was essentially finishing the relay blind.
No matter. The Cardinals finished in 1:27.65, well behind first-place Dayton Oakwood (1:26.68) but more than a second faster than their seed time (1:28.90).
“It was a very stressful night so far, so this was a huge relief,” Bogen said. “I was a little disappointed in the way I swam in my 50 and my 100 and that was the perfect way to rebound.”
Brady, meanwhile, shook off so-so Thursday performances to finish second in the 100 butterfly and seventh in the 100 back, earning the first two individual medals of his career.
“I am beyond happy,” said Brady, who swam the butterfly in 50.70, about a half-second behind Versailles senior Mitchell Stover. “I wasn’t really expecting that but it feels awesome. Absolutely amazing.”
When asked what he was thinking when he saw he placed second, Brady (who was swimming in Lane 2), grinned and said, “I was so surprised, I had to look twice. I had to make sure it [the No. 2] wasn’t just what lane I was in.”
Canfield finished the meet with a fifth-place finish in the 400 free relay. The four Cardinals were the only area swimmers to advance to Friday’s finals — limited to the top 16 swimmers in each event after prelims — and they built on Canfield’s strong state legacy.
The Cardinals have sent at least one relay to Canton every year since 2006.
“It’s a dream come true just to get to this meet, so to come in second is just icing on the cake,” Bennett said. “During prelims, we had kind of a disappointing finish with our times, so we didn’t end up with a great seed time. But coming back from prelims, we really blew them away. It was awesome.”
Division I
In Friday morning’s Division I preliminaries, Warren Harding junior Emily Thirion placed ninth in the 50 free and 10th in the 100 breast to advance to tonight’s consolation finals in both events.
Harding junior Dylan Thirion placed 21st in the 50 free (21.83) and 22nd in the 100 free (47.53).
Boardman's Brooke Bailey placed 14th in the 100 breast (1:06.72), Jessica Hilk was 20th in the 100 fly (59.21) and the 200 medley relay was 18th (1:50.61).