High school 4A swimming: Mustangs' Jake Taylor stampedes his way to spectacular showing

PROVO — It's pretty simple, really.

Whenever anyone talks about the greatest individual performances in state swimming history from now on, Mountain Crest's Jake Taylor will be in the discussions.

You can debate ad museum whether what he did at the 4A state meet this weekend should be considered the best individual performance of all time — there will be people on both sides of the debate — but the point is this: One can't deny that what Taylor did in the pool this weekend was anything short of magical.

Taylor, who's only a junior, amazingly broke three state records this weekend — going faster in the 200 IM, 100 back and 100 free than anyone in state history has ever gone — to etch his name alongside the legendary names of Utah prep swimming, names like Rick Morley, Billy Betz, David Lundberg and others.

And in the process, Taylor beat out Snow Canyon senior Joe Beutler, who will also arguably go down as one of the state's greatest swimmers, to the 4A boys Swimmer of the Meet award.

"It's a gift of god that I've been able to go that fast," said Taylor. "I'm just real thankful that I've had this opportunity to be able to swim and to be able to swim well."

Beutler beat Taylor head-to-head in the 200 free en route to 4A boys Swimmer of the Meet honors a season ago. However, while those two didn't swim head-to-head in an individual event this time around, beating Beutler individually was something that was always on the mind of Taylor.

Beutler bested his own state record in the 200 free and his own 4A record in the 500 free (he narrowly missed out on Morley's 32-year-old state record), but Taylor outscored him, 305-295, in individual points to win Swimmer of the Meet.

"It's kind of bad to say, but it was my main focus to beat Joe this year," said Taylor. "I really wanted to beat him. It's pretty much a miracle I was able to beat him just because of how much of a fierce competitor he is."

After breaking a 30-year-old record in the IM on Friday, Taylor thought he could break the state record of :50.29 in the 100 back, but he didn't think he could break sub-50 seconds in the event.

Accordingly, he was as surprised as anyone when he looked up at the board after his swim to see "49.87" listed next to his lane.

"I knew I'd have to at least get a 50 to get it, so I was planning on getting a 50,' said Taylor. "But then when I looked up and saw that I got under 50, oh man, I was so surprised."