The Carthage High School Boys swimmers are Central Ozark Conference champs for the second year in a row and sixth time since 2008.
The Carthage Tigers boys swim took first place in the COC Invitational Tournament, held Thursday, Oct. 18 at the Buck Miner Swim Center in Webb City.
The Tigers faced off against Carl Junction, Ozark, Nixa, Webb City, and Joplin to take home the trophy.
“Like I told the boys, it was a total team effort,” Coach Braden McBride said. “What makes it possible to compete is that yeah, two or three swimmers get medals, but the top 12 finishers scored. Webb City had over 40 points in diving and the Joplin relays are faster, but my guys that don’t medal scored a lot of points.”
The Tigers started the meet with a deficit due to not having facilities to train a diving team to compete in the diving portion of the meet, held earlier in the afternoon.
Once the swimming portion was underway, they started strong with Alex Dahl, Brayden Cole, Colby Cox and Ben Prince placing second in the boys 200-yard medley relay, and Ezekiel Ramirez, Nick Evey and Ben Sawyer placing in the top 12 in the boys 200-yard freestyle. Brayden Cole took first place and Spencer Dolon took fifth in the boys 200-yard individual medley, and Dahl took fourth Eric Ortega took 12th and Jake Jones took 14th in the boys 50-yard freestyle, to bring the Tigers up to third place after five events.
Carthage placed four top-12 swimmers in boys 100-yard butterfly, two in boys 100-yard freestyle, and three in the boys 500-yard freestyle.
After a second-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay and again taking four of the top 12 spots in the 100-yard backstroke, the Tigers had earned enough points to become a contender for first place.
The 100-yard breaststroke proved to be the most exciting race of the evening, as the Tigers’ Brayden Cole and Joplin’s Avery Oehlschlager fought for first place in the 100-yard breaststroke. They matched each other stroke-for-stroke as the crowd frantically cheered them on.
In the end, it was Cole who barely grabbed first with a time of 1:03.53 to Oehlschlager’s 1:03.83. With four swimmers again placing in the top 12 in that event the Tigers had first place wrapped up before entering into the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay where they took third place.
Final scores for the invitational were Carthage 300, Ozark 278, Webb City 271, Joplin 235, and Nixa 49.
“It feels good to win the COC because it is my last year,” Senior Spencer Dolon said after posing with the team’s newest trophy. “I just hope they will continue to win after I leave.”
The Tigers will compete on Friday and Saturday at the Southwest Missouri Championship held at the John Foster Natatorium in Springfield before sending qualifying swimmers to state November 8-11.
