Parkway Central Wins 3rd Straight Missouri Class 1 State Title
11/19/2024 02:23 PM
By Madeline Folsom on SwimSwam
Missouri High School State Championships- Class 2
- November 15-16
- St. Peters Rec-Plex, St. Peters, MO
- MSHSSA Swimming and Diving Central
- Meet Results
- Team Scores
For the 3rd straight year, Parkway Central High School is the Missouri Class 1 State Champion. Racking up a total score of 266, the Colts beat second place school Glendale by 94 to earn the title.
Missouri Class 1 is for the smaller Missouri high schools
Team Scores:
- Parkway Central- 266
- Glendale- 172
- Clayton- 169
- Central Springfield- 166
- Webster Groves/Westminster Christian Academy- 126
Parkway, incredibly, did not win a single individual event at this year's meet in spite of taking the team title. They won by having athletes score in every event, and frequently multiple finals qualifiers and 'A' finalists. They also won all three relays, with a different team every time. There were also a few new Class 1 records and one new state record.
Parkway Central led off the meet winning the 200 medley relay with a team of Colton Smith (23.97), Connor Muran (25.03), Hunter Deutschmann (21.77), and Nathan Malt (21.77) who stopped the clock at 1:34.57.
They carried that momentum into the 200 freestyle relay where Connor Muran (21.77), Winston Rees (22.59), Zeidan Reza (22.59), and Brody Blatt (20.91) defended their title with a time of 1:27.86.
Parkway's final winning relay consisted of Brody Blatt (46.54), Zeidan Reza (49.26), Nathan Malt (49.23), and Colton Smith (47.49) for a final time of 3:12.52 to sweep all 3 relays.
Whitaker Steward, a Kearney junior and Tennessee commit, defended his titles in both the 200 and 500 freestyles in record time. In the 200, Steward dropped almost a full second to go a 1:38.36, which was good enough for a Class 1 record. Steward's best time in the 500 actually came in prelims where he went a new state record time of 4:21.66. This was a four-and-a-half second drop from his previous best time of 4:26.14, and beat the previous state record set by Class 2 swimmer Alec Enyeart in 2021. Steward also won Swimmer of the Meet for his performances.
The two other two event winners were last year’s 100 fly champion Central Cape's Phineas Theall, and Clayton freshman Austin Chu. Theall successfully defended his 100 fly title with a 48.99, which was just off his prelims best time of 48.34. His prelims time was also fast enough to surpass the previous Class 1 state record of 48.76. Theall also won the 50 freestyle with a 20.57. This was also a slight add from his best time in prelims of 20.54. Theall is a senior this year, but is not committed to any school to swim in the fall.
Austin Chu brought home victories for Clayton in the 200 IM and 100 backstroke. He started off the meet with an enormous best time in the 200 IM, going from a 1:54.41 to a 1:50.79 to earn his first state title. Chu also dropped over a second in his 100 back to go a winning time of 49.24 from his previous best of 50.68.
John Burroughs senior Sean McGinley won the 100 freestyle with a significant drop to go 45.24. McGinley is committed to swim at Xavier University in the fall.
The final individual swimming event went to Hannibal senior Atticus Sternke. Sternke won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 55.71, which is about a second drop from his previous best time. Sternke is not committed anywhere for next year.
Grain Valley junior Gage Wright won the diving event with a finals score of 409.15
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