The Cleveland swim team dove into state Feb. 26-27 with some solid individual accomplishments on both the girls and boys teams. Freshman Ellie Jew and senior Tyler Soo led the way for the teams, which placed 16th for the boys and 20th for the girls in the state meet.

Jew has swum well all year and placed seventh in the in the 200-yard IM (2:08.96). “(Ellie) was the only qualifier (for Cleveland) and scored enough points for the 20th place. There were approximately 40 teams represented and some didn’t make it to the Saturday finals meet, which means no points were scored,” coach Mollie Starr said.

On the boys’ side, Soo capped off an impressive swim career with a string of strong performances in his final swim championships. He placed third in the 50-yard free (21.55), and fifth in the 100-yard backstroke (52.12).

“Tyler Soo on the boys team was a major contributor to the success of the team. He qualified for state and made finals in two individual events and was also on the two state qualifying relay teams,” Starr said.

Another individual of note was Rees Kyle, who placed 10th in the 50-yard free (22.44), and earning three points for the team. Kyle, Soo, Tanner Montagriff-Peck also combined in the 200-yard free relay, along with Jonah Livermore, for a ninth place finish (1.31.72), which was three places better than last year.

Losing swimmers every year to college isn’t easy, but overall, the team is very young and has much more room to improve. “The only seniors on the team this year are Joey (Henderson) and Tyler (Soo). Tyler was a big part of both relays and Joey was a big part of the 400 relay, so the 400 relay is really going to hurt,” Montagriff-Peck said. The beauty of swimming is that the dedicated club swimmers train throughout the fall and summer in order to compete at the peak of their training in the winter.

“Next year, I think we can still get better as our individuals can get better for the club swimmers. We’re losing Tyler next year, so that will really hurt our relays, but his brother is going to be a freshman next year, so that’s going to be good. It’s not going to be quite as good, but it shouldn’t hurt us as much as just losing Tyler would be and not getting anyone in return,” Montagriff-Peck said.