Propelled by senior Patrick Keough, Curtis swimmers take first state title in 30 years

Patrick Keough made his final 100 yards in a competition pool count for the Curtis Vikings.

Well, really, he made all 450 yards that he swam at the Class 4A state boys swim meet count. It’s just that the last 100 of freestyle also clinched the first boys swimming team title for the Vikings since 1992.

“Winning a state championship isn’t something that we ever talk about,” Curtis coach Dennis Piccolotto said. “It’s just about doing our best and having fun, and whatever happens, happens.”

On Saturday, what happened was that Curtis got two huge late relay victories, the last of which ended with Keough’s anchor leg swim in the 4x400 relay that concluded the meet, brought home a title in the event, and secured a 292-282 team championship over runner-up Newport of Bellevue.

“It’s crazy,” Keough said. “Thirty years, too, so it’s exciting.”

The symmetry of that number - 30 years – was not lost on the Curtis team. With the pandemic having forced the cancellation of all state playoffs a year ago, the Vikings had taken up the theme “Back to State,” with their state t-shirts playing off an homage to the movie, “Back to the Future.”

“Just coincidentally, of course, but they go back 30 years in that movie,” Piccolotto said.

The Vikings rode those good feelings all night long on Saturday.

Earlier in the meet, Keough repeated as the champion in the 100-yard butterfly with a swim of 48.37 seconds and added a victory in the 200 freestyle in 1:40.30 before swimming anchor for each of the final two relays – the 200 and 400 frees.

Curtis set new meet records in each.

The Vikings went 1:23.23 in the first, the 200 free relay, to take down the mark of 1:25.53 set by Kamiak at the last state swim meet that was run before the pandemic shut down high school sports, in 2020. The time also set the new all-classification record for Washington, eclipsing the 2003 Mercer Island record of 1:23.84 – a year before the oldest of the current Vikings even was born.

“We didn’t expect to swim the relays like that,” Piccolotto said. “But when you get in that last relay, with that on the line, we’re going to go get it.”

Get it, the Vikings did.

Curtis swam the 400 free relay in 3:06.45, in the process removing the oldest remaining previous record at the 4A meet – the 3:07.06 set by Wilson in 1983.

And the Vikings needed every last point those victories earned. Going into that final event, Curtis held the slimmest of leads, 252-248, over the Knights.

Newport had gotten a surprising victory from Liam Campbell in the 100 free as the Knights junior flipped the script on Curtis sophomore Tolu Young, who’d beaten Campbell in the 50 free just two events earlier. Young swam 20.46 to Campbell’s 20.49 in the 50.

“Newport swam out of their minds tonight,” Piccolotto said. “Those boys had a fantastic meet. They just didn’t have quite enough to get us. But them swam really well.”

Along with several other swimmers moving up in both ‘A’ and ‘B’ finals, Newport had whittled a projected 32-point deficit down to just those four points after 11 events.

“Great swims,” Newport coach Eric Bartleson said. “The kids have kinda been thinking about this meet for two years. And they swam like they’ve been thinking about it for two years.”

In the end, though, Keough and company had enough to hold off the Knights surge. For Keough, it was the end of a career.

“Yeah, and I’m done after this event. I’m retiring from the sport,” Keough said. “So that’s pretty big news for me, and exciting to finish it off in such a manner.”

Originally committed to Brown University, Keough canceled that commitment after forging through the U.S. Nationals and Olympic Trials last summer. It even crossed the senior’s mind to forgo this high school season, though he said that particular thought was fleeting.

“Over the years, it’s very challenging sport to keep up with, and I realized that what swimming has to offer isn’t really what I wanted to do with my life,” said Keough, who has applied to Brown as a regular student (as well as to UW), but hasn’t heard back yet. “It lacked a lot of the passion and excitement and teamwork that you see in this meet. I’m really glad that I got to finish it off with such a vibrant and passionate meet. I’m moving forward in normal student life.”

Curtis had finished second to Skyline in each of the past two state meets, as well as to Newport in 2016, before all state playoffs were erased by Covid-19 for the 2020-21 school year.

The Vikings just never got over the hump after 1992 until Saturday night, when they got “Back to State.”

“This just made it a great story,” Piccolotto said. “We’ll be telling the story of this championship for generations.”