Only the beginning: Andover wins Kansas high school girls swimming team state title
Since joining the Andover girls swimming team, Natalie Neugent has always put the team ahead of her individual pursuits.
Even after a double gold medal performance at last year’s Kansas high school state championship meet, she celebrated the performances with her teammates on relays more than her titles.
Neugent is the selfless superstar, as Andover coach Bethany Bastian likes to call her, and the perfect leader to shepherd in the dawning of what could be a special era of girls swimming at Andover.
After years of pouring herself into the program, Neugent was rewarded in her senior year with the bliss of winning the Class 5-1A team state championship on Saturday at the Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center — the first Kansas high school swim and dive team title in Andover history.
“It just felt right because Natalie has meant so much to our program and to me over the last four years,” Bastian said. “We’ve had a lot of really good kids, but there’s only one Natalie Neugent. She truly is a flagship kiddo. She loves to compete and my favorite thing about her is her grit. She’s someone that the younger kids all look up to. I can’t even put it into words what she means because I might start crying.”
Neugent was brilliant once again in her final state meet, defending her state title in the 50-yard freestyle (24.18 seconds) and earning a silver medal in the 100-yard freestyle, but the story of the meet was the performance of an outstanding freshman class at Andover.
The Trojans had four different freshmen who scored points in both individual events, led by Mari Griffin, who won gold in the 100-yard backstroke (56.74) and took fourth in the 200-yard individual medley. The others were Kiersten Elliott (third in the 100-yard breaststroke and ninth in the 200-yard freestyle), Sophia Mandanis (fifth in the 100-yard butterfly and eighth in the 200-yard freestyle) and Marisa Scholl (ninth in the 100-yard breaststroke and 11th in the 200-yard individual medley).
A trio of freshmen — Griffin, Elliott and Mandanis — joined Neugent, a senior, to win two gold medals in the relays, winning the title in the 200-yard medley relay in 1:48.40 and the title in the 400-yard freestyle relay in 3:371.2.
“It was so cool to be able to share the podium for the relays with the freshmen girls that I swim club with,” Neugent said. “It was just really cool that it was my last state meet and their first state meet. The whole meet was full of really cool moments like that. It was really a great way to close the book on my high school career for us to win state like that.”
While Andover ended up with 56 more team points than anyone else in the field, the team title wasn’t always a certainty.
Bastian said the turning point of the meet for Andover didn’t involve a gold medal, rather a race in the ‘B’ finals with its 200-yard freestyle relay team of Sami McClellan, Emma Henry, Kallisti Mandanis and Scholl.
The group sparked the rest of the team when they dominated their race, not only winning the ‘B’ finals but doing so in a season-best time (1:46.01) that would have placed sixth in the ‘A’ finals.
Kallisti Mandanis (10th in the 100-yard breaststroke) and McClellan (50-yard freestyle) also scored points in their open events, while juniors Emma Todd (ninth) and Chloe Fields (11th) scored in diving in the first year Andover has offered the event.
“If I could relive (Saturday) over and over again, I absolutely would,” Bastian said. “I wish this would be my groundhog day.”
In the next event following the relay, Griffin had the top qualifying time and was allowed to pick the walk-out song for the swimmers in the 100-yard backstroke. Her choice? “My House” by Flo Rida.
It was an impressive display of confidence for a freshman, as Griffin continued the wave of momentum for Andover by touching the wall in 56.74 seconds — less than a tenth of a second faster than Labette County’s Sidni Meister (56.83).
“She told me before the race, ‘This is my house’ and she swam like it,” Bastian said. “Sometimes you have young kiddos you take to the big stage and they freak out and crumble under the pressure. But not this group. I could see in Mari’s eyes she was going to do whatever it took and that’s what she did.”
After winning the state title on Saturday, Bastian and Neugent couldn’t help but wonder if it was the start of something special in the program.
Not only does Andover have a core of talented underclassmen, but it also now has its own aquatic center at the high school after years of conducting its practices at the Andover YMCA.
“I definitely think this has the potential to be something really big,” Neugent said. “We have this brand-new facility and it’s so nice to have a place to call home and a place we can train at every day that belongs to just us. I think with all of that, the next few years are going to be really special for Andover swimming.”
Andover won’t be able to replace the production of Neugent, who is signed to swim Division I at SMU, but her leadership and positive attitude will stick with this core of young swimmers even after she’s gone.
“I think this is going to be a massive springboard for our program,” Bastian said. “Now these girls have a taste of what the state meet feels like and they’re hungry for more. Natalie was so good in helping guide those kiddos all season long and now it’s only up from here. I only see really good things coming from Andover girls swimming for the next however many years.”
Bishop Carroll features three individual state champions
No one could touch Zoe Winter in the butterfly over her career at Bishop Carroll.
The senior added her third state title in the event, winning the Class 5-1A title in 55.98 seconds. If not for the coronavirus pandemic wiping out the 2020 state meet, Winter likely could have completed a 4-for-4 sweep.
Even without her sophomore year at state, Winter cemented quite the legacy at Carroll with the second double gold medal performance of her career on Saturday by also winning the 200 IM by nearly four seconds in 2:05.49. She finished her career as a 5-time individual state champion with three more relay titles to go with that.
She was joined atop the podium by junior Karis Reynaga, who barely edged defending state champion Natalie Neugent of Andover to win the 100 free title in 52.53 seconds. Reynaga also took third in the 200 free, while senior Alex Bailey took sixth in the 500 free and sophomore Bryanna Bailey took eighth in the 200 IM.
All three of Carroll’s relays earned medals with its 400 free relay team taking second with Reynaga, Teagen Patterson, Bryanna Bailey and Winter, while the team of Alex Bailey, Emerson Daugherty, Karol Lopez-Meijia and Reynaga took fifth in the 200 free relay and the team of Patterson, Bryanna Bailey, Winter and Daugherty took sixth in the 200 medley relay.
Kapaun Mt. Carmel freshman Kate Kochenderfer excelled in her first state meet with a third-place finish in the 500 free and seventh-place finish in the 200 free. Sophomore Sydney Turner was also a double medalist in the 50 free (sixth) and 100 free (seventh), while senior Sydney Le was eighth in the backstroke. Isabel Wentzel, Anna Richardson, Kochenderfer and Olivia Orth took third in the 200 free relay, while Turner, Le, Orth and Kochenderfer took sixth in the 400 free relay and Makenzie Amphone, Wentzel, Le and Turner took seventh in the 200 medley relay.
Trinity Academy freshman Aleca Howard was a standout performer, earning the silver medal in the 200 IM and breaststroke races while earning medals in the 200 medley relay (eighth) with teammates Riley Bennett, Ashlyn Butcher and Megan Walls and in the 400 free relay (seventh) with Walls, Bennett and Lily McClintock. Walls also placed eighth in the 100 free.
McPherson won the gold medal in the 200 free relay with a team of freshman Clarea Williams, senior Marissa Pearcy, senior Kierstan Trost and sophomore Danica Brunk in a time of 1:41.23. Brunk (fourth in 50 free, fifth in 100 free) and Pearcy (third in backstroke, eighth in 50 free) were also double-medalists in their open events. Alexis Smith, Pearcy, Trost and Brunk teamed up to finish fifth in the 400 free relay, as well.
Winfield had a double medalist in sophomore Emma Moore, who took fourth in the 500 free and sixth in the 200 free. Sophomore Reese Isom took seventh in the 500 free, while the 200 free relay team of Lydia Nelson, Lilli Benavides, Jordan Hughes and Moore finished sixth.
Collegiate junior Katherine Grace finished runner-up in the 50 free and earned a seventh-place medal in the backstroke. Other area individual medalists included Maize juniors Tarissa Adams (fourth in diving) and Emily Sprowls (eighth in 500 free) and Valley Center sophomore Kayla Milligan (seventh in butterfly). Milligan also earned an eighth-place medal on the 200 free relay team at Valley Center, joined by Della O’Donnell, Abby Anderson and Caroline Tipton.
This story was originally published May 23, 2022 at 6:10 AM.
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