Considering the high bar the team has set for itself the last two years, it could not come as a surprise to anyone to see the Berthoud High School girls swimming and diving team rout conference rival Frederick by 126-44 final team score in the season-opening meet last Wednesday at the Dick Hewson Aquatics Center at Thompson Valley in Loveland.

The Lady Spartans won 11 of the 12 contested events and, perhaps even more impressively, claimed both first and second place in six of the 12. Berthoud Head Coach Matthew Goldsmith was understandably pleased with the results, particularly with it being the first meet of the season.

“Very happy, I was especially pleased with the freshman, they kind of surprised us, the majority of them were hitting 31s in their 50 frees and their splits in the 50 in the two free relays,” Goldsmith said, adding that the team approached the meet as a trial run to establish a starting point for the season. “Today was kind of just gauging what we could do and what we could be and I think moving forward, and I’ll check out the results of the other teams in the conference, but these girls are excited to potentially do something big at conference.”

Berthoud saw strong showings from swimmers up and down the roster but seniors Kysa Keck and Abby Dodd and freshman Avery Anderson really shined; all three won two individual events apiece and contributed to wins in the relay races.

Keck took first place by a very comfortable margin in the 100-yard breaststroke, besting teammate Natalie Major by nearly 10 seconds, 1:07.63 to 1:17:35 and third-place Kyla Mares from Frederick (1:24.59) by almost 17 seconds. Keck also bested teammates Marin Kasperbauer (27.78) and Paige Bauer (28:75) to take the gold medal in the 50-yard freestyle race.

Dodd took first place in both the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle races, the latter of which she finished in 2:15.59, nearly 20 seconds ahead of teammate Kelly Conlon (2:33.06). Dodd bested Bauer 1:01.67 to 1:05.55 for first in the 100 free while teammate Emma Harris took third place in 1:11.93 to give Berthoud the top three places on the podium.

Freshman Avery Anderson, who Goldsmith mentioned as one of the stars of the meet for Berthoud, also took home the gold medal by winning the 200 individual medley (2:43.50) and the challenging 500-yard freestyle endurance race (6:26.34), and with comfortable margins in both. The Lady Spartans also claimed first place in all three relay races, though Goldsmith said following the meet that all three first-place teams have turned in faster times in practice.

“This was not our fastest relay day,” Goldsmith said. “None of our relays were our top relays today and even our B relays weren’t’ really our B relays because some kids in our C relays were out-swimming our B relays, but I’m overall very pleased.”

The lone race in which Frederick was able to claim first place – the 100-yard backstroke where Jessica Wilkinson turned in a 1:16.63 to best Major from Berthoud (1:19.11) – would almost assuredly have been won by four-time All-State senior Jamie Dellwardt, who has posted sub-one minute times in the race multiple times in her Berthoud career but was taking the meet off due to other obligations.

Goldsmith commented after the meet that the shortened season will mean more of his swimmers will be focusing on their strongest events, aiming to get their times as low as possible in the regular season run-up the conference and state meets in early March. Said Goldsmith, “These kids will probably be swimming a lot of the same races every meet, we only have a few practices between each meet so we will work on race-specific strategy for each meet and do our best,”

Berthoud will face off 5A Loveland High Saturday.