Mill Creek senior and Naval Academy commitment Rachael Dudley competes in the 100 butterfly at the 5-A state swim championships at the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center Saturday night. Dudley won the event for the third straight year and also took first in the 100 backstroke. Graham Robson/The Paper
ATLANTA – Regardless of what happened Saturday at the 5-A state swim championships, Rachael Dudley was going to leave as one of the most accomplished swimmers in the history of the Mill Creek program.
With two individual state championships Saturday, a first for the Naval Academy bound swimmer, Dudley put an exclamation point on her high school career.
Dudley won her third straight state championship in the 100 butterfly with a time of 54.46 seconds and won the 100 backstroke for the first time after placing second last season.
“It feels good and was super stressful because once you win once, everyone expects you to win every year,” Dudley said about winning in the butterfly, her signature event.
When it came to winning the 100 backstroke, Dudley said that it feels good, but was a bit of a surprise.
“I was really happy with that because I don’t really train backstroke,” she explained. “I don’t really know how I did that, but coming in I knew that I had a shot at it since the girl that won last year graduated.”
Dudley took first in the 100 back with her All-American consideration time of 55.39, ahead of Etowah’s Megan Young (56.39) and Milton’s Katie Grover (56.99).
Head coach Rick Creed said that it was nice to see Dudley accomplish the two-title feat in her final high school meet.
“She finished second in the 100 back last year and swam the 500 free the year before and finished second, so she’s had two seconds the last two years and it was good to see her get that other win,” Creed said.
Frederique Lefebvre placed fifth in the 200 yard individual medley (2:06.13) and swam well in the 500 free in Heat 1 (5:00.74) after missing the championship heat in qualifying.
“She didn’t swim as well as she would have liked (Friday), but she stepped up tonight,” Creed said.
As a team, the Mill Creek girls fell short of the top three finish they hoped for, placing seventh, but Creed said that it was a good learning experience for his young team.
“Other than (Dudley and Lefebvre), our girls’ team is pretty young, so we’re hoping next year that our girls will learn from this state meet and work hard and hopefully next year we’ll get back and make the top three,” Creed said. “It’s going to be hard to replace our two top swimmers, but we’ve got some good young talent, so hopefully next year will be a better year.”
Other highlights from the day include a second-place finish in the 200 free relay. The team of Maddie Wrolson, Lefebvre, Kara Powell and Dudley edged out third-place Brookwood (1:37.50) by fractions of a second, with their time of 1:38.40.
The same foursome had a fourth-place showing in the 400, coming in with a total time of 3:33.38. The team of Madison Gibson, Joy Na, Morgan Elliot and Alyson Carroll took third in the 200 medley relay to open the meet.
For the boys’ team, Chris Powell highlighted the day with two third place finishes. The junior took third in the 50 free with his time of 20.98 seconds, just behind Wheeler’s Sean Sloat (20.86) and Brookwood’s Michael Trice (20.48).
Powell took the top qualifying time in the 100 free on Friday, but fell just short of the state title in the finals after finishing third (46.22) in a tight race again with Trice and Sloat. This time, it was Sloat that came away with first after passing Powell and Trice on the final turn.
“Chris had just an outstanding meet,” Creed said. “He’s just a junior and he went up against two solid seniors today in both events. He’ll be the favorite next year.”
The boys relay teams also had some solid showings, finishing third in the 200 free with the team of Powell, Bryan Murphy, Garrison Bemis and Andrew Kozlovski with their time of 1:25.71.
The team of Powell, Bradley Tarantino, Kevin White and Kozlovski placed sixth in the 400 free.
As a team, the Mill Creek boys finished ninth overall, one spot better than their 10th place finish a year ago.
“While we didn’t finish as high as we would have liked, both teams swam hard and I’m proud of our kids,” Creed said.
