This 3A high school swimming season ended on a very positive note for Judge Memorial. Both the boys and girls teams won, making it two in a row for the girls and a threepeat for the boys.

The boys team also set a 3A state record in the 200 medley relay and broke four school records.

After losing many strong graduating swimmers from a dominant state championship team in 2022, the girls team wasn’t confident about success. They had a decent regular season but after losing to Juan Diego by 59 points at the region meet on Jan. 29, the chances for a repeat weren’t looking good. But they peaked at the right time at the state meet at BYU on Feb. 10-11.

Doing better than they thought they would, the girls found themselves in second place after the preliminary round, trailing Juan Diego by just one point.

On the day of the finals every point counted. There were no individual state champions this year. Points came from a lot of different people. In the 200 freestyle sophomore Delaney Dolan took second and freshman Sophie DuPont took third. Dolan also finished in second place in the 500 freestyle, and DuPont finished fifth in the 100 backstroke. Freshman Amelia Conner took third place in the 200 individual medley and fourth in the 100 breaststroke. Senior Lanee Farr took eight in the 100 freestyle.

The girls relay teams earned important points too. Both the 200 medley relay and 400 freestyle relay took second, and the 200 freestyle relay took sixth.

In the end the Judge girls won their second straight state championship with a total of 234 points, with Juan Diego finishing in second place at 226 points.

The boys team has been at the top of 3A swimming for years, and they continued that this year. They ended with 392.5 points, winning comfortably over Canyon View who was the second place team 242 points.

The 200 medley relay team also set the  3A boys swimming record with a time of 1:38.51. The relay, consisting of Benji Gillespie, Nico Morton, Matt Eagar, and Levi Galaviz beat the previous school record by 1.52 seconds and the 3A state record by 0.45 seconds.

Senior Nico Morton also set three school records. He swam 1:54.36 in the 200 individual medley, beating his own previously held record by 3.59 seconds. He broke the school record in the 100 backstroke with a time of 52.23, beating the previous record by 0.89 seconds, set by Joey Zone in 1993. Morton also set a new record in the 100 backstroke with a time of 57.20, beating the previous record set last year by Buddy Yannelli.