Crimson Bears sweep up wins in the pool, both in and above the water

The Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé swim and dive team is proving to be a powerhouse in the Southeast swim season.

The Crimson Bears swept the combined team titles Friday and Saturday in their home meet by nearly 300 points each night. JDHS won 16 of 24 events on Friday and 13 of 24 Saturday as they honored their senior team members.

“Senior night was awesome,” Matthew Plang said. He had relay wins and top placings in the 50 freestyle and 100 breaststroke. Plang was honored along with classmates Kellen Arvidson, Parker Boman, Lucia Chapell, Gabby Ely, Matthew Godkin, Nova Brakes-Hines, Brooklyn Kanouse, Oliver Lamkin, Nolan Noel, Cole Reel, Pacific Ricke, Owen Rumsey, Caitlin Sanders and Paul Smith.

“From the unique handbags, custom hoodies and heartfelt speeches it was truly a surreal experience that allowed me to appreciate and look back on the time I’ve spent with this team,” Plang said.

JDHS was so dominant in the meet that the top three team placings in each of Friday’s girls 200 medley relay, boys 200 medley relay, girls 200 freestyle relay and girls 400 freestyle relay went to Crimson Bears’ squads. On Saturday they claimed the top three placings in the girls 200 medley relay and girls 200 free relay, the top two placings in the girls 400 free relay and the top placing in the boys 200 free relay (complete results are attached at the bottom).

“Senior night was such a wonderful experience,” Ricke said. She earned relay success as well as wins in the 200 and 500 free. “I’m so grateful to all the coaches, parents and fellow swimmers who have helped out, not only last weekend but also throughout my high school career. As for the girls team’s success, I am so proud to get to practice and compete alongside such a powerful group of women, and hope we are able to continue this momentum into regions and state.”

First-place finishes were earned by Boman (relay, 200 IM, 100 breast), Brakes-Hines (relay), Chapell (relay, 100 fly), Godkin (relay, 100 fly), Reel (relay), Rumsey (relay), Sanders (relay), junior Deedee Mills (relay, 50 free, 100 free, 100 back), sophomores Josh Edwards (relay), Bailey Fisher (relay, 50 free), Amy Liddle (relay, 100 fly, 200 IM, 200 free, 500 free), Kennedy Miller (relay, 100 breast), Maddox Rasmussen (relay) and Kaelyn Szefler (relay) and freshman Liam Kiessling (relay).

“I feel as though me and the team both swam exceptionally well,” Liddle said. “We still have a long way to go until regions and state, but I am confident that we will achieve all of our goals by then. Swimming is so mentally challenging and I think that is something that we will always need to be improving on to become better swimmers.”

Success is not just coming from in the water, but also from above as the JDHS dive team earned a sweep of the top five placings with sophomore Moira Bahn (133.10 score), junior Taylor Mesdag (129.84), Sanders (104.85), sophomore Stella Asplund (91.80) and sophomore Adeline Williams (81.80) leading the scoring on Friday and Mesdag (154.15) and Bahn (133.35) switching their top placing in the same lineup on Saturday followed by Sanders (116.35), Asplund (108) and Williams (102.25).

“I did alright this weekend,” Mesdag said as she poured over school work in the weight room above the Dimond Park Aquatics Center pool. “I didn’t throw my best dives the first day but on the second day I got close to 160 points, which is not my best but is not too low either, so I’m pretty happy with it.”

Smith finished second (152) for boys divers on Friday and third (159.60) on Saturday, both nights within overtaking Ketchikan which has a history of strong divers.

“I think a lot of people get confused that swimming and diving are the same thing,” Williams said. She too was doubling up on weights and studies. “I have both swam and dived, and I think that to distinguish them in the best possible way I’d say that swimming has been physically one of the hardest things I have ever done, and diving is the same but with mental. Diving is mentally the hardest and swimming probably physically the hardest for me. I think I have definitely found really good friends from both and both have given me great experiences. I have an amazing coaching staff and just a great team overall.”

Williams has known a lot of her teammates from her early pool swimming days in the Glacier Swim Club and up to last season when she decided to be a diver.

“That was a big switch, but I am really glad I did it,” she said. “I don’t think I have been throwing my best in competition this year, but it is still a great and fun season. I definitely think I have a lot more room to improve, but I think it is just going to get better from here.”

Mesdag is in her third year of diving and has been part of the Glacier Swim Club since age seven, switching to diving when she started high school. She is a Region V tournament favorite (Oct. 31-Nov.1) and a strong contender for a state championship (Nov. 8-9).

“I’ve known all my teammates since I was really young,” Mesdag said. “They feel like family to me because I have been around them for so long…I have to agree with Addy, I think diving is more mentally challenging than swimming is. It has a lot to do with body awareness and spatial awareness — the ability to understand the relationship between your body and the objects around you — in the air. Like you are never going to have to know exactly where your body is and what you need to do in swimming, like you are going forward…but diving is a lot of mental work, a lot of mental blocks. Those are really common, especially for dives and can be dangerous if you do them wrong, you could hit the board or slap the water really hard…we’ve had a couple divers with injuries from diving. So mental blocks can get you stuck throughout your career.”

With no gymnastics program in the high school, divers are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in Anchorage, who also have club diving all calendar year.

“We basically have to cram all that knowledge that they are learning and practicing in a span of about three months,” Williams said. “It is definitely tricky. You have to pick what to focus on and be proficient at it. It’s challenging, it’s scary and it demands a lot of attention and time.”

Both agreed that the huge amount of points divers score for their teams is often overlooked.

“People put you off when they find out you are a diver,” Mesdag said.

“We’re like the halftime show, basically, for the swim meet,” Williams added.

Both were student-athletes at the now defunct Thunder Mountain High School and are not only bringing over that school’s tradition, but also their dive program as JDHS had not established a consistent program on the boards.

They said the combined merger of teams was rough at the beginning for seniors at JDHS who did not have their coach from the previous seasons but new coaches from TMHS who were district employees.

“I feel a lot of empathy for them,” Mesdag said. “But I am also impressed by the way they are able to adapt to such big changes.”

“It wasn’t that the swimmers weren’t getting along, but it was more the change in coaching methods,” Williams added. “They coach very differently and want to do different things for the team, it was a big switch to make both the JD and TM kids happy, but I think we have done a pretty good job of it.”

The team has done well enough to capture another meet title with a combined 511 points on Friday to Ketchikan’s 215, Sitka’s 115, Petersburg’s 55, Craig’s 53 and Wrangell’s 18.

On Saturday JDHS scored 485.5, KTN 219, SIT 157, PSG 61, CRG 60 and WRG 17.

JDHS’ Liddle, Mills and Plang each totaled 18 points over their individual races to lead the meet on Friday. JDHS’ Ricke, Miller and JP Robbins 16; Chapell, Fisher and Godkin 14, Brakes-Hines 13 and Edwards 12.

On Saturday Mills, Liddle and Boman each tallied 18 points to lead the meet; Plang 16, Fisher and Edwards 14, Ricke 13.50, Miller and Riley Soboleff 12 and Godkin 11.

“I believe the meets leading up to the championship meets are stepping stones, in place, for us to accomplish the goals we have set for ourselves at the end of the season,” Plang said. “With that in mind I believe every single person on the team knows that we still have a long road ahead of us and that we shouldn’t be hung up on this win as anything can happen in the next four weeks.”

JDHS competes at Sitka Oct. 18-19, at the Region V Championships in Petersburg Nov. 1-2 and in the State Championships at Anchorage’s Bartlett High School Nov. 8-9.

• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.