Seymour’s Kate Connell does a backflip in midair during her dive on Tuesday night against Madison.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Seymour’s Kylie Grove swims the 200 yard freestyle on Tuesday night against Madison.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Seymour swimming head coach Dave Boggs encourages his swimmers during Tuesday night’s meet against Madison.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Seymour’s Lane Mellencamp comes down the final stretch to win the 200 yard IM on Tuesday night against Madison.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Seymour’s Grace Lewis takes a deep breath before one of her dives on Tuesday night against Madison.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
Seymour’s CJ Polley swims the 100 yard butterfly on Tuesday night against Madison.
Dylan Wallace | The Tribune
The Seymour boys and girls swimming and diving squad had solid starts to their respective seasons on Tuesday night at home against Madison.
The boys defeated the Cubs 97-76 and the girls won 113-67.
The diving wrapped up first and Kate Connell took first place for Seymour with a score of 127.95. Grace Lewis was second with 125.5. Kaleb Brown won the diving for the boys with a 144.38.
For Connell, despite coming in first, she wasn’t all that pleased with her performance, but she’s optimistic for the rest of the season.
“I feel like there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement,” Connell said. “It was a rough first meet for me, but I can only go up from here, so I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”
Connell, a senior who has been diving all four years, said it struck her a little bit before the meet that this would be her final first meet.
“I realized it a little bit,” she said. “Like ‘oh my gosh, this is the last time I’ll be swimming against Madison.’ It’s crazy.”
Connell believes her best dives are her front one-and-a-half, back somersault and inward dive. She wants to work on getting better mentally this season as well.
“Definitely my mental attitude going into each meet,” she said. “That’s what I’m going to work on in the future. Being able to clear my mind and get out of my own head.”
She wants to score in the 200s this season. Her career best is somewhere in the 170s.
“I feel like if I improve in the ways that I would like to I can definitely make it,” she said.
Other first-place finishes for the Lady Owls were Kylie Grove in the 500 freestyle in 6:15.05, Katya Cox in the 100 backstroke in 1:07.19, Lauren Bode in the 200 IM in 2:39.02, Addy Castetter in the 100 butterfly in 1:08.67, and Seymour’s 400 freestyle relay team of Sallie Nicholson, Lilly Simons, Cox and Avery Stewart. They finished in a time of 4:18.49.
For the boys, Paul Montgomery took home two victories in the 50 free and 100 free. Montgomery swam a 22.66 in the 50 and 50.31 in the 100.
“It felt great,” Montgomery said. “I was hoping I would start out better than I did last season, and I really did. We’re off to a good start.”
Montgomery was a state qualifier in both of those events last season, and he’s staying with them this year.
“I discovered my events last season and I’m sticking to them,” he said.
Montgomery still sees lots of room for improvement to get faster as well.
“I see lots of places I can improve with the turns off the wall, so I need to work on making those things better,” he said.
Montgomery is also a senior, and he can’t believe it’s already his final year swimming for the Owls.
“It’s crazy,” he said. “It hasn’t quite gotten to me yet. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like by the end of the season.”
Lane Mellencamp also had a first-place finish in the 200 yard IM (2:14.41) and Larry Simons won the 500 free (5:45.32).
Like the girls, the boys also won the 400 freestyle relay. Montgomery, Grant Smith, Simons and Mellencamp finished in a time of 3:41.83.
Owls who placed second on Tuesday featured Grove in the 200 free, Simons in the 200 free, Avery Miller in 200 yard IM, Cox in the 50 free, Avery Stewart in the 100 fly, Amber Ault in the 100 free, Nicholson in the 500 free, Lucas Jablonski in the 500 free, Makenna Greenawalt in the 100 breaststroke and Chaze Combs in the 100 breaststroke.
Full results from Tuesday’s meet will be posted on tribtown.com.
The Owls are now off exactly one week until they’re back in action at home against Jeffersonville next Tuesday at 6 p.m.