Miners, Bulldogs take titles

Optimism reigned at the Judge Memorial Holiday Classic Saturday morning.

With the Christmas moratorium looming, virtually everyone with state aspirations from the nine-team field left the Fairmont Aquatic Center happy with the results.

How did those results look?

For starters, No. 4 Bingham comfortably won on the boys side, besting fifth-ranked Viewmont 419-354.

Meanwhile, Judge's deep girls squad, which is ranked No. 1 in Class 3A, won that team competition convincingly. The Bulldogs finished with 500 points, which was 187 points ahead of Timpview, the top-ranked team in 4A.

"It was a good meet for us," said Judge coach Matt Finnigan, echoing the sentiment of other coaches at the classic. "A lot of personal bests, and I just think we're on the right track."

Finnigan said he was particularly pleased with Kelsey Elizondo, a winner by more than four seconds in the 200-yard freestyle, Erika Christiansen, Colleen Grogan and Maggie Nichols.

On the other hand, Timpview wasn't unhappy with second place. Coach Jessica Laws made it an optional meet for her swimmers, which left her girls team at roughly half its normal size.

But led by Kanani Roberts and Kylie Harper, among others, the Thunderbirds were quite strong when they competed head-to-head with Judge.

"We only brought half our girls to this meet," said Laws. " . . . To compete against Judge and swim well, they did an incredible job."

Then there was Bingham's boys team. The Miners continued their impressive season with a team win on Saturday. As has been the case all year, Trevor Salt helped lead the squad.

He set a a school record in the 200 individual medley and also won in the 100 breast.

"We're ahead of where we were last year," said Bingham co-head coach Mike Cordray.

The two-day event afforded another chance for the Wasatch Front to witness the talents of freshman wonder Joe Beutler, who's from Snow Canyon. He won the 200 freestyle on Friday before claiming victory in the 500 freestyle Saturday morning by a whopping 30 seconds.

GRANITE DISTRICT CHAMPIONSHIPS: So much for Skyline's supposed struggles on the boys side.

First-year coach Joe Pereira has proclaimed his five-time defending state champions wouldn't be way ahead of the field this year, but results from Friday's Granite School District swim championships suggest otherwise.