High school swimming: Brighton dominates to win 5A swimming title

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PROVO — The Bengal dynasty is alive and well as Brighton picked up its fourth straight state championship with a total of 394 points.

"We have a really fast team," said Long Gutierrez. "We're even better than last year, which is amazing."

Gutierrez started off the second day of the state meet with a bang by breaking his own state record in the 100-yard fly. Brighton filled up the podium in this event with Hunter O'Neal finishing second and Tanner Wiest coming in fourth.

Gutierrez also finished the day with a bang as he broke the state record for the 100-yard freestyle during the 400-yard medley relay. Jake Taylor of Mountain Crest owned the record with a time of 45.56, but Gutierrez came in at 45.31. Brighton won the relay with relative ease.

Brighton landed three more swimmers on the podium in the 500-yard freestyle with Kyle Spicer, Carson Malen, and Matt Templeman finishing fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively.

The 100-yard breaststroke also saw a couple of Bengals on the podium with Trent Evans in third and Ryan Brinkerhoff taking fourth place.

Bingham finished with a distant second with 216 points and got a great performance from Shane Callihan. The senior took first place after working for four years to reach the podium.

"I'm just trying to hold myself back right now. I feel like I want to cry," said Callihan who received a roaring applause from the large group of Bingham fans in attendance.

The Bingham relay teams also performed well, taking fourth in the 200 and 400-yard freestyle relays.

Kearns finished in third thanks in large part to the efforts of Sam Huff. Huff took first in the 50-yard freestyle on Day 1, the 100-yard freestyle, and was the leadoff member in the 200-yard freestyle relay team that edged out Davis for the top spot. Adam Parkinson, Bryce Pearson and Kevin Anderson made up the rest of the relay team.

Anderson was Kearns' anchor man during the relay and had to dig deep on the last stretch to preserve the win for the Cougars.

"My heart was pounding, and I told myself that I wasn't going to lose this for us," Anderson said.

Reflecting on the victory Pearson said, "Kearns gets so much negativity from the schools around us, but this just shows that Kearns has great athletes and is full of great people."