Despite the fact that it is a relatively young program – this season being only its fourth year in existence – the Berthoud High School girls swimming and diving team has been making waves, no pun intended, in the 3A ranks from the very beginning.

Photo by Mark Roberts – Berthoud’s Natalie Major (left) and Corinne Roberts each brought home gold medals from the Longs Peak League conference swimming and diving championships last weekend. The pair will be joined by 10 teammates at the 3A state championships this week in Thornton.

Coach Matt Goldsmith’s squad already has a team conference championship, multiple individual conference championships, several top-10 finishes at the state meets and two individual state championships on the resume. The 2021-22 season, even with a host of new, young faces competing across the full spectrum of events, has continued the strong tradition.

Competing last weekend at the Longs Peak League championships, Berthoud’s Corinne Roberts and Natalie Major each won individual conference crowns, as did the 200-yard medley relay team comprised of Roberts, Major, Jennifer Conlon and Marin Kasperbauer and the Lady Spartans finished with the bronze medal in final team scoring.

In addition to the hardware the team collected, 48 season-best times were recorded by the Lady Spartans at the conference championships and the team will be sending 12 competitors – Roberts, Major, Kasperbauer, Jennifer Conlon, Kelly Conlon, Paige Bauer, Ryley Dawe, Emma Harris, Amelia Hughes, Maryn Maggi, Kaleigh Schanker and Malia Sylva – to this upcoming weekend’s 3A state championship meet.

Roberts, a freshman phenom who has taken the league by storm this winter, took home the gold medal in the 100-yard breaststroke race, beating her own Berthoud High record with a stellar time of 1:10.27, breaking her prior best time and previous school record by nearly a full second. Her first-place time this past weekend was more than a full second ahead of second place Rowan Lavigne of Niwot (1:11.43). Roberts also placed second in the 200-yard individual medley, posting a time of 2:15.84, nearly five seconds ahead of her previous best time (2:20.33).

Major, a sophomore, took the top spot on the podium in the 500-yard freestyle endurance race, touching the wall in 6:01.88 in the finals, just barely behind the 5:59.88 time she posted in the prelims; her times in the event were the two best recorded in the meet. Major also took second place in the finals of the 200-yard freestyle, posting a time of 2:09.13.

Berthoud’s 200 medley relay team (Roberts, Major, Kasperbauer, Jennifer Conlon) won the gold with a sub-two-minute race (1:59.00), three seconds faster than the prelim time (2:03.04) and more than five seconds quicker than the previous season best time of 2:05.05. The Lady Spartans 400-yard free relay team (Bauer, Hughes, Major, Roberts) took third place in the finals with a season best time of 3:58.22 and the 200-yard freestyle relay team (Bauer, Hughes, Maggi, Kelly Conlon) took fourth place in the finals, posting a time of 1:52.83.

In the finals of the one-meter springboard diving finals, Schanker (300.2 points) and Rylee Knowles (277.90) placed behind only Taylor Paterson of Mountain View (369.20). Kasperbauer posted season best times in both the 50-yard freestyle sprint (0:26.23) and the 100-yard freestyle (0:58.55) races, placing fourth in the finals of both races, the same finish as Hughes (1:08.24) in the 100-yard butterfly.

The 2022 3A state swimming and diving championships will be held this Friday and Saturday at the Veterans Memorial Aquatics Center in Thornton.