Kansas high school girls swimming: Hillsboro swimmer wins two golds with meet record

Every day this spring after school ended at Hillsboro, Lauryn Vogt and a handful of teammates were picked up by coach MacKenzie Magee and driven 15 minutes to the Marion Aquatic Center to make it to swim practice.

The cooperative team gave swimmers from Marion, Hillsboro, Centre and Peabody-Burns a chance to compete in the high school ranks. For Vogt, it was a chance to demonstrate small-town athletes can compete against swimmers from large metropolitan areas.

While many of the Class 5-1A gold medalists from last Saturday’s Kansas high school girls swim and dive state championship meet were from the Wichita or Kansas City metropolitan areas, Vogt became a double champion and tied a state meet record competing against swimmers from schools with nearly eight times the enrollment of Hillsboro (167 students).

“It’s really exciting to show what Hillsboro can do,” Vogt said. “The practices are hard, but what keeps me going is that motivation of performing at big meets like state and getting those times and seeing the hard work pay off.”

Driving out of town to practice swimming is nothing new to Vogt, who routinely makes 90-minute round-trip drives for club practice with The Nitros of Kansas in Wichita. Swimmers in Hillsboro didn’t have the option to compete in high school until the cooperative team was formed in 2022, just before Vogt reached high school.

That opened up the avenue for her to become the star of the state meet in Lenexa, where she claimed her second straight title in the 50-yard freestyle, tying a 26-year-old state-meet record with her career-best time of 23.77 seconds, then completing a golden sweep by winning the 100-yard butterfly race in a season-best time of 56.02 seconds.

“I think what separates her from the rest is just her willingness to work hard,” Magee said. “Swimming is not an easy sport and you’ve got to seriously push yourself. It’s not a sport where you can rely on other people. It’s just you out there. She has that ability to really lock in and focus and push herself to do hard things.”

While Vogt’s victory in the butterfly was impressive, clearing the field by more than two seconds, her final in the 50 free was perhaps the best race of her young career.

Vogt knew a clean race would threaten the 1998 record held by Winfield’s Kathy Echiverri, especially after she had been clocked in the 23.65 range for her split on Hillsboro’s 200 free relay team.

“The 50 free is the hardest race, in my opinion, because everything has to be perfect,” Magee said. “You have to be quick off the blocks, you have to have a strong stroke, a strong turn and a strong finish. You only get two lengths of the pool and then it’s the first one to the wall. In those longer races, even in the 100 free, you have a little more grace.”

This past Saturday, almost everything came together for Vogt: a fast reaction time off the block, excellent under-waters, a much better turn than her preliminary race and a powerful finish.

It was so good that Vogt, who registered the fastest 50 free time in Kansas this season, believed she had taken down the record.

“You think about the things you could have done a little better to maybe break it,” Vogt said. “I wish I would have broken it, but you also have to think, ‘What if I went .01 slower and not broken it?’ So I feel great about tying it and having a race like that.

“To be able to get that double championship, that was a huge goal for me this season. So accomplishing that, tying a state record and getting two gold medals, I’m just really excited to share it with everyone around me on my team and my supporters.”

Other Wichita-area medalists at state swimming

Trinity Academy junior Aleca Howard successfully repeated as a double champion in the same events, winning the 5-1A titles in the 200 IM (2:05.18) and breaststroke (1:04.76) for the second straight year. Howard has four gold medals and two silver medals for her individual career.

Andover finished runner-up in the 5-1A team standings, highlighted by junior Mari Griffin winning the backstroke title (55.29) for a second time and also nabbing silver in the 200 free (1:54.13). Fellow juniors Sophia Mandanis, who took second in the butterfly (58.26) and third in the 200 IM (2:10.80), and Kirsten Elliott, who took second in the breaststroke (1:06.02) and fifth in the 100 free (54.15), were also double-medalists for the Trojans. Griffin, Elliott and Mandanis teamed up with freshman Brynn Eilert to win the 200 free relay championship in a time of 1:55.09, while the trio paired with junior Savannah Mann to take second in the 400 free relay in 3:41.43.

Behind all three relays placing and a pair of double-medalists, Wichita East finished sixth in the team standings at the 6A state meet with 148 points. Senior Abby Jones took third in the 500 free (5:14.31) and eighth in the butterfly (59.69), while sophomore Jordan Kleeman was fourth in the backstroke (59.98) and seventh in the butterfly (59.50). Jones was joined by junior McKenna Blessant, sophomore June Schmidt and freshman Kaitlyn Ly to take sixth in the 200 free relay (1:43.64), while Kleeman was joined by Ly, senior Jocelyn Quah and senior Brittney Nguyen on the 200 medley relay (1:56.61) team that took seventh. Kleeman and Jones teamed up with Blessant and Schmidt to take eighth in the 400 free relay (3:44.58).

Kapaun Mt. Carmel finished sixth in the 5-1A team standings was led by junior Kate Kochenderfer, who placed runner-up in the 500 free (5:07.95) and third in the 200 free (1:54.18), as well as individual medalists in senior Sydney Turner (100 free, eighth) and sophomore Gabby Kinman (diving, eighth). Kochenderfer and Turner also teamed up to lead the Crusaders to two medals in relays, as they teamed up with junior Isabel Wentzel and senior Savannah Austin to take third in the 200 free relay (1:43.47) and Wentzel and senior Makayla Austin to take fourth in the 400 free relay (3:47.52).

Bishop Carroll took seventh as a team with a double-medalist in sophomore Genevieve Wilhite, who took third in the backstroke (58.36) and fourth in the 200 free (1:56.17), and another individual medalist in senior Bryanna Bailey (breaststroke, seventh, 1:12.20). Wilhite and Bailey teamed up with senior Teagen Patterson and sophomore Maggie Bailey to take fifth in the 400 free relay (3:51.77) and eighth in the 200 free relay (1:45.69).

Double-medalists from the area included McPherson senior Danica Brunk (champion in 100 free, third in 50 free), Valley Center junior Jillian Davis (second in backstroke, sixth in butterfly), El Dorado junior Briley Larcom (fourth in 50 free, fifth in backstroke), Norwich sophomore Kimberlyn Grim (fifth in butterfly, sixth in 500 free) and Hesston sophomore Angela Ewert (seventh in 200 free, eighth in 500 free).

Other area medalists included Maize South sophomore Sydney Schumaker (diving, fourth), Derby senior Ana Self (diving, fifth), Maize South junior Camille Keeler (breaststroke, sixth), McPherson junior Bree Pickerell (500 free, seventh), Andover Central sophomore Sienna Hurst (breaststroke, eighth) and Winfield senior Emma Moore (200 free, eighth).

Other area relay teams that medaled included the Winfield 200 medley relay team of senior Ella Kohpay, junior Jordan Hughes, senior Reese Isom and junior Lydia Nelson (fifth), the Maize South 200 medley relay team of freshman Madelyn McCluskey, Keeler, senior Yasmine Marcos and junior Erin Wilson (sixth), the McPherson 200 free relay team of junior Clarea Williams, sophomore Adyson Wiens, Pickerell and Brunk (sixth) and the Winfield 400 free relay team of senior Mikayley Clock, Isom, Kohpay and Moore (seventh).