By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
The crowd in the Clarkston High School Natatorium was cheering as the first two swimmers finished the 400-yard freestyle medley relay last Thursday night.
Marion Walters, from Clarkston Girls Swim and Dive, finished just seconds before Oxford’s Alanna May to take the first place for her team.
The Wolves finished the meet with a 119-67 win over the Wildcats.
“It was what we hoped to do,” said Amber Miller, head coach. “We knew going into it there would be some tough races. Oxford has a couple of studs we know can put up some times. We were hoping our depth would help us out. We’ve got some heavy hitters up front, but we have a little bit of depth behind it that we really rely on.”
The Wolves also celebrated 12 of their student-athletes for Senior Night.
“It is one of those bitter sweet day,” said Miller. “You hate to see them leave. They are a part of our family. We will miss them. We know they will come back and visit us. It’s fun to be able to celebrate them and give them a victory on their night.”
She added it was a great night to host Oxford.

“The coaches and team are good friends of ours,” Miller said. “We love having them in our home. They are a great opponent and it’s fun to celebrate the night with them.”
Swimmers scoring points in the individual events included: in the 50-yard freestyle, Lilly Kurmaniak finished in first place in the time of 26.56; Calida Brown, fourth, 28.61; Caitlin McGivern, fifth, 28.66; 100-yard butterfly, Ella Johnson, second, 1:06.37; Katie Haar, third, 1:07.37; Brown, fifth, 1:16.13; 100-yard freestyle, Lilly Kurmaniak, first, 58.87; Elaina Kurmaniak, second, 1:02.62; Paige Szerlong, fourth, 1:03.77; 100-yard backstroke, Rylee Harris, first, 1:03.45; Bayla Zarzycki, fourth, 1:13.83; Elaina Kurmaniak, fifth, 1:16.50; 100-yard breaststroke, Olivia Zeiman, second, 1:20.20; Marion Walters, third, 1:20.42; Lucienne Lemieux, fourth, 1:25.20; 200-yard freestyle, Harris, first, 2:02.65; Marion Walters, third, 2:15.81; Szerlong, fifth, 2:17.14; 200-yard IM, Johnson, first, 2:36.38; Zarzycki, second, 2:42.25; 500-yard freestyle, McGivern, first, 6:18.49; Lemieux, second, 6:27.03; and Katie Haar, fourth, 6:48.15.
Jordyn Coin finished in first place with 183.05 points in the 1-meter diving earning six points for the Wolves. Ava Dowd finished in second place with 170.05 points.
The Wolves took first place in all three relay events during the night.
The team of Harris, Zeiman, Johnson and Lilly Kurmaniak finished in first place in the 200-yard medley relay in the time of 2:00.86. The team of Zarzycki, Lemieux, Haar and Brown finshed in second place, 2:09.09.
For the 200-yard freestyle relay, the team of McGivern, Brown, Harris and Lilly Kurmaniak finished in first place, 1:50.48. The team of Walters, Elaina Kurmaniak, Szerlong and Zarzycki finished in third, 1:56.34.
For the 400-yard freestyle relay, the team of Madison Kauth, Johnson, Haar and Walters finished in first, 4:16.83. The team of Szerlong, McGivern, Lemieux and Elaina Kurmaniak finished in third place, 4:26.05.
Clarkston hosts West Bloomfield on Thursday, 6 p.m.
“We have some really big competition coming up with West Bloomfield,” Miller said. “They have some really talented girls. It’s going to be our biggest meet. Right now, we are looking to mentally prepare for that. Our goal is to come out and hopefully go for a league championship. Everything we are doing is training for that. Just taking it one week at a time.”
The Wolves head to the Oakland County Championships the following week. Diving competes on Friday, Sept. 30 and swimming events are Saturday, Oct. 1. They head to Rochester on Thursday, Oct. 6. Then, they are at the Michigan Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association Meet on Friday, Oct. 7 and Saturday, Oct. 8.

  Clarkston Girls Swim and Dive, Swim and Dive