Mustang Madeline Hazle dives in for the third leg of the winning 200 yard freestyle relay at the TISCA championships with teammates Jamie Friderichs, left, and Leah Pfitzer on deck and Shannen Wehrman in the water.

The Kingwood High School girls’ swim team successfully defended their title at the 2009 Texas Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association Gulf-Zone Championships.

For the second year in a row, the Mustang girls won the TISCA swim meet held on Nov. 20-21 at the Conroe ISD Natatorium. The Woodlands High School girls were second. The Woodlands turned the tables for the boys and took first with Kingwood in second followed by Kingwood Park in fourth place.

The Mustangs set four pool records and broke four team records at the highly-competitive, prelims-finals meet attended by 50 teams from Houston and surrounding areas. What is remarkable about the records is that they were set without the aid of technical suits which first appeared on the high school scene at this meet last year following their use in the 2008 summer Olympics. The National Federation of State High Schools Association banned the suits for this swim season.
 
The ruling apparently did not hinder to the Mustang girls who won all three relays and also placed the B team in finals in each relay. Jillian Vitarius, Michelle Gean, Leah Pfitzer and Jamie Friderichs set the tone by winning the first event: the 200 yard medley relay in pool record time of 1:46.47. The B team of Lauren Day, Danielle Meara, Sydney Conroy and Shannen Wehrman was sixth. Pfitzer, Wehrman and Friderichs teamed up with Madeline Hazle to win the 200 yard freestyle relay, followed by Cami and Cati Luhrs, Amanda Day and Lisa Swank in ninth.The girls also won the 400 yard freestyle relay with Vitarius, Katheryn Nolen, Hazle and Gean. Cami Luhrs, Amanda Day, Rachel Martin and Conroy were tenth in the event.

Vitarius won both the 200 yard freestyle and her signature event: the 100 yard backstroke, eclipsing her own pool record in a time of 55.87. Other finalists in the backstroke were: Swank finishing eighth and Lauren Day in eleventh place. Hazle broke the Mustang freshman school record in the 200 yard IM finishing second in the race with a time of 2:06.19. Kingwood stacked the deck with three others in IM finals: Conroy, 7th; Martin, 11th; Meara, 15th. The girls 50 yard freestyle was also loaded with Mustang swimmers earning four of the top eight places: Friderich, 2nd; Pfitzer,6th; Wehrman, 7th; Swank, 8th. Gean, a senior who has signed to swim at Rice University, was third in the 100 yard freestyle, followed by Friderichs, 6th; Wehrman, 7th; Lauren Day, 13th; and Cami Luhrs, 14th.

The six freshman girls on the team all scored points at TISCA. Hazle lowered her own freshman record in the 500 yard freestyle with a fourth place finish. Freshman Nolen went the distance with a 14th place in the 500 free and a 13th place in the 200 free. Two other freshmen were finalists in the 100 yard butterfly: Pfitzer, 7th; and Conroy, 11th.

In the last individual event, the 100 yard breaststroke, the Mustangs placed three girls in finals: Gean, 4th; Sara Walton, 11th; and Meara 15th.

For the Mustang boys, relay wins were harder to come by, but the Mustangs squeaked out first in the 400 yard freestyle relay - just six tenths of a second ahead of Cy-Creek High School. Credited with the win were: Jordan Jones, Will Oswald, Ryan Glander and Matt Barber. The Mustang boys were second in the 200 yard medley relay and came in fifth in the freestyle relay behind Kingwood Park in first.

Barber, who recently signed to swim at the University of Arizona, won both the 200 and 500 yard freestyle races, setting pool records and lowering his own team records in the process. He clocked a 1:39.10 in the 200 and a 4:28.09 in the 500, more than 10 seconds ahead of the pack. His teammate Oswald won the consolation finals in those same events coming in ninth overall. Junior Patrick Pash was fourth in the 200 free.

Jones earned two second places: the 200 yard IM and the 100 yard freestyle. Hayden Polenz won a swim off in the 100 freestyle to make the consolation finals and take 14th overall.  Ryan Glander, who has committed to swim at Arizona State, was fourth in the 100 yard backstroke and fifth in the 100 yard butterfly. Steve Ciliske won the consolation finals in the butterfly placing ninth. Joseph Bergmeister had a breakout swim in the 100 yard breaststroke lowering his best time by three seconds to earn seventh place in finals.