Team Records, a High Point Award, and a 2nd Place finish for ABSC at 14 & under State

Mike Radford

February 16th-18th, 2024. Atlanta Georgia.

After an incredible weekend of swimming from our Dawgs, ABSC has placed finished 2nd in Division 2 (the large team division) at the 2024 14 & Under Short Course State Championship meet at Georgia Tech! 

Headlining the meet for the Dawgs were two of our oldest swimmers in the meet, Tessa Steger and Joey Rhine, our 14 year-old representatives from the Senior 1 group! 

Tessa lead not just ABSC, but all of the 13-14 year-old girls in the meet by winning the "High Point Award" for that age group! This means out of all of Tessa's individual events combined, she scored more points than any other girl in the state in that age group! 

Tessa qualified for finals in every event she swam, making the fastest heat of finals in all but one individual event. Her best swims were the the 400 IM - in which she placed 2nd overall AND qualified for her first ever "Futures" cut, a big achievement for a 14&under - and the 200 fly, in which she won a state championship. She also broke the ABSC team record in the 400 IM, a record which dated back to 1997.

Not to be outdone, Joey Rhine also had a huge meet himself, finishing 2nd overall in the 13-14 boys age group in the "High Point" standings. Because ABSC's 13-14 boys realys were strong, Joey did not finish outside the top 10 in a single event the entire weekend, whether individual or relay! Joeys best swims on the weekend were the 100 free, 200 free, 100 fly and 200 fly. He placed 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and 3rd respectively in those evenst, and three out of the four of them were ABSC team records!

Joey's 13-14 Boys 100 Freestyle team record broke the record held by Ryan Wylie from 2016. His 200 Butterfly record broke Charlie Logan's records from 2017, and his 200 Butterfly record broke Matt Buck's team record from all the way back in 1991! 

Other successful swims on the weekend

Along with Joey and Tessa, several other ABSC swimmers had extremely successful weekends as well, with many qualifying for finals and several swimmers qualifying for top-10 finishes in the state, including: 

  • Sima Bahr: 100 Freestyle (9th), 100 Butterfly (10th). 11-12 Girls
  • Micah Boyd: 50 Freestyle (8th). 10&under Boys
  • Sawyer Cain: 50 Backstroke (7th), 10&under Girls
  • Nakul Karumbaiah: 100 Breaststroke (4th), 13-14 Boys
  • Logan McLeroy: 200 Freestyle (10th), 400 IM (6th), 200 Butterfly (5th). 11-12 Boys
  • Coby Savage: 200 Freestyle (9th). 11-12 Girls
  • Leah Templin: 100 Butterfly (6th), 200 Butterfly (5th)
  • Hong-Yi Wang: 50 Breaststroke (4th), 50 Freestyle (10th), 100 Breaststroke (3rd). 9-10 Boys
  • Zoey Zellner: 200 Butterfly (10th), 13-14 Girls 

Relay Success:

On the relay side, ABSC had several relays finish in the top 10 as well, headlined by the outstanding performance of our 13-14 boys A relay team of Elliott Austin-Bowen, Nakul Karumbaiah, Vidur Karumbaiah, and Joey Rhine.

  • 400 Medley Relay: 7th, 200 Freestyle Relay: 6th, 200 Medley Relay: 7th, 400 Freestyle Relay: 6th

Other Top-10 Relay Swims included:

  • 400 Medley Relays:
    • 11-12 Girls, 5th (Coby Savage, Lucy Cochran, Leah Templin, Sima Bahr). 
    • 11-12 Boys, 10th (Sam Price, Nolan McCullough, Logan McLeroy, Jack Kirkland).
    • 13-14 Girls, 10th (Iris Wang, Karoline Nimmo, Zoey Zellner, Tessa Steger).
  • 200 Freestyle Relays: 
    • 11-12 Girls, 9th (Allie Burns, Quinn Fleming, Brynn Sharpton, Lucy Cochran)
  • 200 Medley Relays:
    • 11-12 Girls, 10th (Coby Savage, Leah Templin, Allie Burns, Sima Bahr)
    • 9-10 Girls, 9th (Sawyer Cain, Juliet Johnson, Athena Matthews, Aly McCullough)
    • 9-10 Boys, 6th (Miles Miller, Hong-yi Wang, Micah Boyd, Carson Cannon). 
  • 400 Freestyle Relays:​
    • ​11-12 Girls, 4th. (Sima Bahr, Coby Savage, Lucy Cochran, Leah Templin)
    • 13-14 Girls, 9th. (Karoline Nimmo, Sam McCullough, Zoey Zellner, Tessa Steger)
  • 200 Mixed Medley Relay (10&Under, 2 boys, 2 girls)
    • ​7th, Sawyer Cain, Hong-Yi Wang, Athena Matthews, Micah Boyd

It was a fantastic weekend for ABSC swimmers all around, and now, we head to the Northeast Divisional Championship meet for one last hurrah as a team this short course season.

Go Dawgs!