Loveland – Drew Brown of Grandview held the lead heading into the diving finals at previous meets only to fall back into the pack.
At the Dick Rush Invitational on Saturday, Brown unleashed a twisting, turning and nearly splash-free final dive to move from fourth place with three dives remaining to the top of the leaderboard.
Making up 35 points on his last dive was impressive enough, but Brown had to overcome a field that included three state champions – Sean Moore of Regis (Class 5A winner in 2006), Ben Grado of Conifer (4A in 2006) and Taylor Sishc of Mountain View (4A in 2005). Hunter Helmstaedter of Cherry Creek, who placed second at state in 5A last season, also was in the competition.
“Last year at state, I was in first place going into finals but I kind of bombed one of my dives and Hunter and Sean passed me up,” said Brown, who finished third at the 5A state meet. “My goal is to take it back this year.”
Brown, who has three top-10 state finishes in three seasons, lifted off the diving board into a reverse 1 1/2 flip with 2 1/2 twists, earning scores as high as 8.5. He edged Grado in the final tally, 517.75-515.45. Moore, who will dive at Ohio State, placed third with Sishc and Helm- staedter rounding out the top five.
Regis won the team title by a landslide at the 49-school meet at the Mountain View Aquatic Center, finishing more than 200 points ahead of second-place Cherry Creek. Silver Creek was the top 4A school.
Regis senior Luke Pavlakovich was honored with the Hoyt Brauner Award, which recognizes a participant’s athletic, academic and extracurricular achievements.
In the pool, Silver Creek’s Nick Koerner won the quickest race, the 50-yard freestyle, and Tyler Bush of Fort Collins won the longest, the 500 freestyle.
In between, it was the Mark Dylla and Jay Kim show.
Dylla, a six-time state champion at Heritage and twice a national champion who will attend Georgia, scorched the field in the 100-yard backstroke and the 100 breaststroke.
“I guess you have the whole concept of Regis and their team domination and their best guy with Jay, and then I don’t know if you want to call me the best of the rest. I wouldn’t call me that, but combined we can make for a fast race,” Dylla said.
Kim, part of a Regis program that has won 12 consecutive 5A team titles, as good a run as there has been in any in-state sport, won the 100 freestyle and 200 individual medley by wide margins. Kim also swam on two of the Raiders’ winning relay teams.
“The 100 freestyle was my fastest time ever,” said Kim, who gave a fist pump after recording a time of 46.58 seconds in the race.
