It’s a new year, but the same stretch of dominance continued last weekend for the Glenwood Springs Demons girls swimming program, as the Demon girls continued their unbeaten streak by swimming and diving past the other Western Slope League schools at Colorado Mesa University.
Glenwood scored a meet-high 431 points as a team, edging out Grand Junction with 409 points in second place. Fruita Monument placed third overall in the meet with 301 points, while Aspen (250) and Montrose (160) rounded out the top 5. Moffat County placed sixth with 132 points, while Delta placed seventh, scoring zero team points.
As in previous meets, the Glenwood girls again used an all-around team effort to have another strong showing at the Grand Junction Invitational Meet at CMU. In the meet win, the Glenwood girls finished top 5 in 17 different events.
Early on, Glenwood led the meet thanks to a third-place finish in the 200 medley relay, clocking a time of 2:06.38. Building off of that finish, Haley Diemar placed third in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 2:12.78, while Kaitlyn Vanderhoof placed fifth in the same event, pushing the Demons out to the lead.
Grand Junction’s girls narrowed the gap with strong finishes in the 200-yard individual medley and the 50-yard freestyle, as Glenwood scored just three top 5 finishes in the two events, as Amy Madsen placed fifth in the 200 individual medley, and Kylee Smith and Emily Borel placed second and fifth in the 50-yard freestyle.
Glenwood opened the lead back up in 1 meter diving events as state qualifier Abby Scruton and teammates Celia Scruton and Libby Claassen placed first, second and fourth in the competition. Following the strong showing by the diving team, the Demons took a lead that appeared insurmountable at the time, according to Glenwood head coach Steve Vanderhoof.
However, Grand Junction closed the gap again, this time overtaking the Demons by winning the next four events in the 100-yard butterfly, 100-yard freestyle, 500-yard freestyle and the 200-yard freestyle relay.
Falling behind by over 30 points, the Glenwood girls battled back as they had their best events ahead of them, including the 100-yard breaststroke and the 400 freestyle relay.
As planned, Glenwood had strong finishes in the breaststroke, as Ellie MacPherson, Kendall Mueller and Ella Lindenberg placed second, third and fifth in the event, while Grand Junction had a swimmer place ninth in the event. Glenwood then caught the 5A Grand Junction team and headed into the final event with a slim 2-point lead.
In the final event, the 400 freestyle relay, the Demons and Tigers had two teams place in the final event. Prior to the race, Glenwood coach Vanderhoof communicated to his team that it was winner take all, and the girls took that to heart, as the relay team of Kaitlyn Vanderhoof, Haley Deimer, Sally McDonnell and Kylee Smith won the race with a time of 4:03.08, while the second Glenwood relay team of Macy Stinson, Sophie Moon, Amy Madsen and Maggie Freimel placed third in the race with a time of 4:09.78.
The Demons overwhelmed the Tigers as Grand Junction mustered just a fourth-place and a ninth-place finish.
By winning the Colorado Mesa meet, the Demons recorded their fifth straight win to open the 2018-19 season.
Glenwood returns home to the Glenwood Springs Community Center for its winter invite Saturday morning at 10 a.m.