Curtis’ Tolu Young sets record in 50 free, paces Curtis swimming to second-place finish in 4A

It was barely 9 a.m. when Tolu Young provided the defending champs the early highlight at King County Aquatic Center on Saturday morning.

The Curtis High School junior went 19.73 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle, nipping Newport of Bellevue’s Liam Campbell in what many consider the marque event of the meet, in an automatic All-America time that reset the Class 4A meet and overall state records in the event.

Young lowered the record of 19.81 set three years ago by Glacier Peak’s Matt King.

He took more than a tenth of a second off his time just from the Friday preliminaries, when he went 19.86. And has dropped nearly seven-tenths of a second this weekend from his previous personal-best of 20.41.

“I’m surprised I dropped that much,” Young said. “I was really shocked (yesterday) when I went 19.86. And then I managed to get it to that. I’ve known about it (the record) since last year. I kept my eye on it for a long time. I was surprised I was that close yesterday. I managed to get it.”

Young repeated as the 50 free champion. Like he did last February, Campbell returned the favor in the 100 free. Though it wasn’t a record, the Knights senior took more than two seconds off his prelims time from Friday, swimming an automatic All-America time of 44.4 seconds to grab that title for the second straight season.

Coupled with his 19.98 time in the 50 free, Campbell scored 315 points to earn the Swimmer of the Meet award over Young and double winners Sam Empey (200 free, 100 butterfly) of Union and Connor Brown (200 individual medley, 100 breast) of Eastlake.

“History repeating itself,” Campbell said.

Those individual performances from Young, and a new meet record of 3:04.98 in the 400 free relay, helped catapult Curtis back into the top two overall. The Vikings lowered their own record of 3:06.45 from just a year ago in the final event of the meet.

Campbell and Newport still won the team title, 268.5-229, over the runner-up Vikings.

Newport won for the first time since completing a run of three straight titles from 2014-16. The Knights and Curtis swapped spots from a year ago.

“We finished second last year,” Newport coach Mark Budos said. “And the guys had this date circled on the calendar from the first day of practice this season.”

CLASS 3A

With the team title a foregone conclusion, to the point that Mercer Island being disqualified after easily winning the 400 free relay had no bearing on the Islanders’ third consecutive team state title, it was left to the individual competitors to create the drama.

Three swimmers each won two events in the final meet of the day at the Aquatic Center.

Jason Nordgren, a senior from Bainbridge, won the 50 and 100 yard freestyles. O’Dea junior Jack Skarda took the 200 individual medley and the 100 breast, and was named Swimmer of the Meet.

Then there was Aiden Hammer. The freshman from Gig Harbor splashed onto the state stage by coming from behind twice, to win the 200 and 500 frees. Both victories came against top prelims qualifier Miles Williamson of Mercer Island.

Hammer started his day by going 1:32.89 in the 200, an All-America consideration time. He then strategically took down Williamson in the 500.

Swimming next to the Islander senior, Hammer stayed just behind Williamson’s hip in second place for the first nearly 400 yards. Then he stepped up the speed, catching the Mercer Island senior with 75 yards to go and driving past him over the final 50 to become the third double winner of the meet.

As he’s a freshman, there’s also history to consider. He has a chance to become an eight-time individual winner if he chooses to swim high school for his entire prep career.

That, though, is for another day. On Saturday, Hammer was just having fun.

“It was just different energy in the crowd,” Hammer said of the difference between prelims and the finals. “I just had energy flowing through and put a little more effort into that. They were just really fun races.”

CLASS 2A

The Steilacoom Sentinels held the lead in the 2A meet for nearly 48 hours. Event No. 5 of 12, the diving competition, was held on Thursday afternoon, and Sentinels Carlo Zavala, Connor McPhail and Nate Englund finished second, third and seventh for 45 team points. That staked Steilacoom to a 13-point advantage as the swimming finals began on Saturday afternoon.

Once those got underway Steilacoom couldn’t keep up, though the Sentinels found themselves in third place overall as late as event No. 7. Steilacoom finished fifth with 164 points. Pullman won the 2A title, 286-245, over runner-up Anacortes, swapping positions from 2022 with the Seahawks.

There were only two double winners in the meet. Miles Cratsenberg from Bellingham set the meet record in the 200 free, going 1:37.75 to lower the 1:38.18 set by Liberty’s Warren Briggs in 2020, and added the 500 free title to earn Swimmer of the Meet. Pullman’s Jake McCoy won the 200 IM and the 100 back.

This story was originally published February 18, 2023 at 2:27 PM.