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Freebird: Charlottesville boys swim relay squad explodes at states

Photo by Bart Isley

As the top seed in the event, Charlottesville’s boys swimming’s relay squad got to pick the walk-out song for Saturday night’s VHSL Class 3 400 freestyle relay. Will Keenan, the squad’s lone senior, knew exactly what it needed to be.

 

“We picked Freebird,” Keenan said. “I started doing winter swimming my sophomore year during COVID and it helped me out through some pretty bad stuff with COVID and my coach Mike Wenert’s favorite song is Freebird and he would always play it in practices so this was my final send off to one of my favorite coaches of all time.” 

 

The Black Knights bounced on to the pool deck from the ready room the familiar strains of the Lynyrd Skynyd classic and then promptly capped a historic night for Charlottesville swimming with a third state runner-up performance in a relay, completing a trifecta of second places. It’s a feat that likely hasn’t been pulled off and definitely hasn’t been bested by the Charlottesville swim team before. The Black Knights took second in the 200 medley relay, then took second in the 200 free relay and finished it off with a second in the 400 free relay. All three swims by the quartet of Keenan, Quinn Buckner, Teddy Buckner and Dylan Halbert were school records.

 

“It was just absolutely fantastic,” Keenan said. “To break three school records, one of which was from 1992, one that we broke two weeks ago and was from 2001 and then another in the 400 free relay, just to be able to come together and do that after not being able to even show up to states in some of them has just been fantastic.”

 

All four swimmers swam the prelims in the morning too for the Black Knights. The relay performances and Keenan’s eighth place in the 100 butterfly were good enough to vault Charlottesville to 11th place in the team standings.

 

Charlottesville, the Region 3C runner-up as a boys team, has not traditionally made a ton of noise at the state meet, so to see them rip off three high caliber swims was an incredible feat, especially after not qualifying to swim in the finals in some of the relays in previous years. For Keenan, it was a moment of personal triumph too, because three silver medals at states would’ve been hard to believe when he picked up winter swimming as a sophomore.

 

“I didn’t even know I was going to stick with swimming,” Keenan said. “I thought I’d branch out to other sports. To get three state runner-ups in one night? It’s really fantastic.”

 

Goochland’s boys team finished eighth as a team with Harry Belcher’s runner-up finish in the 200 free and third place in the 100 butterfly helping spark the Bulldogs into the top 10. The Bulldogs took ninth in the 200 medley relay and seventh in the 200 free relay. Bill Belcher took ninth in the 500 free relay and Leyton Sutherland took 13th in the 50 free. 

 

Monticello’s Graham Dugas led the Mustangs’ efforts with a sixth place in the 200 IM and a seventh place in the 100 breaststroke while Valentin Dowd took 10th in the 100 free and ninth in the 100 backstroke.

 

For Fluvanna, Ethan McPherson took seventh in the state in diving and Ian Patchett took ninth while Jackson Kinsella finished 11th in the 100 free. 

 

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