Lady Cats fifth in state swimming

ALBUQUERQUE — Clovis High’s girls certainly met expectations in Thursday’s state swimmng competition at Albuquerque Academy H.S. … and they came close to exceeding them.

Sophomore Shyann Kissinger accounted for a pair of top-three individual performances and helped Lady Wildcats relays to two top-four showings as Clovis finished fifth in the meet with 156 points.

Moreover, they were within striking range of a top-three team finish, which would’ve earned them a trophy.

“Fifth place is a great (team) finish,” CHS co-coach Vincent de Maio said. “Just a couple of places, one way of the other, and we could’ve been third.

“With kids that young, that’s remarkable.”

Host Academy steamrolled to the team championship with 392 points to 250 for runnerup Eldorado. Meantime, the Lady Cats were just 10 points behind third-place Los Alamos (166), with Las Cruces (164) sandwiched in between.

All told, the Lady Cats scored in 10 of the 11 swimming events.

Kissinger finished third in the 200 freestyle at 1 minute, 58.00 seconds, behind winner Reese Hinnerichs of Hope Christian (1:54.05) and runnerup Allison Bernier of Academy (1:56.79). She later came back to post a time of 5:08.70 and lead a 2-10-12 Clovis finish (eighth-grader Julia Spears in 5:36.34, freshman Kiara Morgan in 5:42.52) in the 500 freestyle, coming in 11/100s of a second behind Bernier, a senior.

Those two events gave CHS a total of 44 points.

Kissinger also swam the 200 and 400 freestyle relays, both of which were sophomore Chloe Lee, freshman Kiara Morgan, Kissinger and freshman Jakoda Culley. The 200 free relay was third in 1:44.52 and the 400 free relay finished fourth in 3:48.58, accounting for a combined 62 team points.

“Probably the highlights of our meet were the 500 free and the 200 free,” CHS co-coach Gordy Westerberg said. “We were thrilled with that (team) finish.”

The boys state meet was scheduled for Saturday, also at Academy H.S.