The Delaware Aquatic Racing Team Stingrays (DARTS) did what they typically do when they hit the Highland Park Aquatic Center pool for the Greater Columbus Swim League Championships earlier this month: win.
The Juniors and Seniors each capped stellar seasons with team titles. The Juniors won with a combined score of 1,249.50 while the Seniors took top honors with a total of 1,987 points. Highland and Plain Township nabbed runner-up honors in the respective divisions.
The overall team championship (combined diving and Junior and Senior swimming scores) was the Stingrays’ eighth straight. The showcase marked the fourth time in 38 years the Juniors and Seniors won in the same year, matching the efforts of the squads from 2011, 2013 and 2015. The Juniors repeated as champs while the Seniors took home the first-place hardware for the fourth straight summer.
The list of Stingray winners — one highlighted by GCSL record breakers Ben Paull and the 18U girls 200-meter medley relay team (Grace Horstman, Kristen Puthoff, Dani Ward and Brooke Glesenkamp) — is a lengthy one. Paull won the 14U 50 freestyle in 23.23 seconds while Horstman, Puthoff, Ward and Glesenkamp won with a record-breaking time of 2:05.16. Paull eclipsed former Stingray Anthony Hinton’s 2010 effort of 23.27 seconds while the medley relay quartet bettered the Northwest Swim Club’s mark of 2:05.86 from back in 2011. Both times were also good enough to set DARTS records.
Seven other team records were broken during the finals at Highlands Park. Zach Ward won the 14U 100 individual medley in 1:07.70, Glesenkamp broke records in the 100 IM and 100 free with respective times of 1:07.48 and 58.89, Ward set a record in the 100 butterfly thanks to a time of 1:09.29, Colin Hawes set a new team-best mark of 1:03.55 in the 18U 100 IM and the 14U boys 200 freestyle relay team (Paull, Aidan Stojkov, Caleb Bucher and Zach Ward) and 18U girls 200 freestyle relay team (Ward, Horstman, Puthoff and Glesenkamp) set team records by winning their respective events in 1:50.55 and 1:52.62.
All-in-all, the Stingrays won 11 of the 20 relay events and took home first-place bragging rights in 23 of the 82 events.
The Seniors finished a perfect 4-0 in the regular season while the Juniors closed 3-1 with their lone loss coming by just two points to Highlands Park.
