West Potomac Girls Swim and Dive Finish Fifth at States

The West Potomac girls swim and dive team finished fifth at the Virginia State AAA High School Swim and Dive Championships last weekend in Virginia Beach.

The girls earned 132 points behind state champion Langley (187 points), runner up Oakton (166 points), then Robinson (161 points) and Osbourne Park (138.5 points). The Wolverines had top seven finishes in seven of the eight events for which they qualified. 

Top three finishers for the girls included the girls 200 meter freestyle relay team of junior Reanna Doña, sophomore Maddy Bolger, freshman Sara Bertram and sophomore Hellen Moffitt which finished second to the state champion team from Langley who set a national high school meter record in the race.

Moffitt finished third in the 100 meter butterfly and in the race, Janet Hu of Oakton set a new state record. Finally, Doña also finished third in the 100 meter backstroke in which Madison Hahn of Maury set a new state record.

In the 50 meter freestyle, Moffitt finished fourth and Doña finished sixth behind state champion Janet Hu of Oakton, who set another state record the day before in the preliminary session.

Bertram finished seventh in the 100 meter butterfly after moving into the top eight for finals with a strong effort in the preliminary session where she went in seeded 13th.

The girls 400 meter freestyle relay team (Doña, M. Bolger, Bertram and Moffitt) finished sixth to complete the scoring for the girls.

The girls also qualified for states in the 200 meter medley relay and the team of Senior Julia Bolger, M. Bolger, Bertram and Sophomore Leigh Orleans finished 23rd in the preliminary session.

This year's effort at states is by far the best West Potomac has ever done in a state meet since at least 1997 for which records are available. The next best performance was last year where the girls scored 65 points and finished 13th overall.

On the boys side, senior Mark Mattis was the only state qualifier for the Wolverines and he finished 15th in the 200 meter Individual Medley. Mattis had a strong effort in the preliminary session to qualify for finals after being initially seeded 17th in the event. In team scoring the boys finished 42nd overall with that effort.

Editor's Note:  The author, Joe Mattis, is a parent of a student on the West Potomac swim team.