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The West Jessamine High School Girls’ swim team, with help from the boys’ team, secured fourth place overall at the KHSAA’s State Swimming and Diving Championships last weekend.

The school’s girls team won 137 points in multiple races in the championships hosted by the University of Kentucky at its Lancaster Aquatic Center on Saturday, Feb. 22. The girls’ team placed fourth among their fellow girls’ teams. On Sunday, the boys team won 70 points and placed tenth among the other schools’ boys teams, bringing both teams’ total to 107 points. 

Eighth-graders Catherine Gaddis, Gabby Torres Marris, Riley Nelson, and Sophomore Caroline Delong, Juniors Amelia Lee and Conlee Zonio, and Seniors Margaret Wilson and Shelby Gaddis won first place as a relay team in the Girls 200 Yard Medley Relay, completing the race in well under 2 minutes at 1:47.39. Only about 7 seconds more than the meet’s best time for the race by Sacred Heart Academy in 2024. 

The girls team won first place together again in the Girls’ 200-Yard Freestyle Relay, this time only missing the record time by about 3 seconds with a 1:37.40 finish. Margaret Wilson, Caroline Delong, Shelby Gaddis, Amelia Lee, Conlee Zonio, Gabby Torres Morris, Riley Nelson, and Catherine Gaddis secured this freestyle relay win. 

“My Jessamine County Girls won 2 relays last night!! It was thrilling!!” wrote Chris Fugmann, head coach of the High Bridge Aquatics swim club program. 

Fugmann had four girls’ team swimmers on the Highbridge Aquatics and West Jessamine teams, who placed in last weekend’s state championship. Amelia Lee, Shelby Gaddis, Margaret Wilson, and Caroline Delong participate in the West Jessamine High School swim season and the year-round club swim with Fugmann. 

“What is amazing about this is that for years and years and years, [with] all the big catholic schools like Sacred Heart in Louisville, it was almost automatic that they would win the relays because they were so deep [in team numbers] and the private schools, they don’t have boundaries, right, they can recruit from everywhere, I mean people go to private schools from all over. So, the fact that Jessamine County won in relays is huge. Everybody’s very excited,” Fugmann said.

Amelia Lee continued racking up points for the team in the Girls’ 100 Yard Butterfly with second place at 54.69 seconds. First place was Charlotte Crush from Sacred Heart, beating her 2024 record with a final time of 50.88 seconds. Lee also won third place in the Girls’ 100 Yard Backstroke at 54.30 seconds. Charlotte Crush from Sacred Heart won first place in this race, setting a new best time for it at 50.15 seconds. Margaret Wilson also placed in this race in 11th place at 58.61 seconds. Shelby Gaddis was right behind Wilson in the race, placing 14th at 59.67 seconds. 

Margaret Wilson placed fourth in the Girls’ 100 Yard Freestyle at 52.79 seconds.

The boys’ team also placed in the championship. 

Senior Joshua Tatro placed 10th in the Boys’ 50 Yard Freestyle at 21.65 seconds, with the record best for the race not far at 19.93 seconds. He also placed 12th in the Boys 100 Yard Freestyle at 47.78 seconds, the record for this race being 42.70. 

Junior Tucker Wilson placed 11th in the Boys’ 100 Yard Butterfly at 51.74 seconds. The record time for this race in the championship is 46.29. 

The ‘boys’ team also had some relay wins, including fifth place in the Boys’ 400 Freestyle Relay at 3:14.57 with Wilson, Joshua Tatro, Sophomore Jack Lee, Freshman Andrew Tatro, Junior Duncan Nathaniel, and 8th-grader Steven Brown. The record time for this race was set by St. Xavier High School in 2024 at 2:56.51.

Seventh place in the Boys’ 200 Yard Freestyle Relay at 1:28.74 with Wilson, Joshua Tatro, Lee, Andrew Tatro, Nathaniel, and Brown. The record time for this race was set by Lexington Catholic in 2019 at 1:21.96.

Jack Lee, Joshua and Andrew Tatro, and Tucker Wilson also swim in the Highbridge Aquatics club.