Lady Buffs reclaim WAC swim crown

GCHS’ Sekavec wins Swimmer of the Year honor

Somewhere during the spring 2024 season, Garden City High School girls’ swimming coach Jennifer Meng went from being somewhat hopeful to mildly confident that her team had a good chance to win the Western Athletic Conference championship.

That belief came from a couple of mid-season meets where they swam against all the WAC opponents and defeated them each time.

“We were hopeful at first, but then I think the girls gained confidence when we finished ahead of the other teams earlier,” said Meng, after she watched her Aqua Buffs dominate the one-day championship in their home pool. “It was an exciting day and it’s something that we point toward each year.”

The Lady Buffs prevailed on championship swim day with 419 points to Great Bend’s 366. Hays was a distant third with 258.

To understand the accomplishment, one only has to look at the past 25 years of WAC girls’ swimming to get a feel for how Great Bend has been the dominating program. 

WAC girls swimming began in 1996 and Great Bend won the first three until Garden City won four in a row from 1999 to 2002. From there, however, Great Bend won 17 straight (2003-2019) before the COVID year intervened.

The Lady Buffs won the title in 2021 to snap the Panthers’ streak only to have Great Bend respond with titles in 2022 and 2023.

“They’ve been the standard bearer and we’ve been the pursuer,” Meng said. “I felt this year, though, that we had more depth and that’s an important part of the scoring in WAC.”

The Lady Buffs wasted little time in setting the tone for the 2024 championship by taking the top two spots in the 200-yard medley relay.

“I wasn’t surprised we won with our A group, but for our B group to finish second ahead of Great Bend (by .13 of a second), it was a big surprise and set the mood for the rest of the meet. I think we just built on that momentum.”

The biggest challenge for Meng this year was to find ways to replace top swimmers Avery Meng and Payton Tull, both four-year swimmers who had captured several individual events.

“There were a couple of years where we won more events than Great Bend, but they had more depth,” Coach Meng said. “It was just the reverse this year. We had much more third-fourth and fifths this time.”

The Lady Buffs, in fact, won just three individual events – Riley Sekavac in the 500-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke while Brylee West took the 200-yard freestyle. The Buffs won two of the three relays, however, piling up significant points there.

“We have such a young team (one senior) and I’ve been pleasantly surprised as to how much progress the girls have made during the season,” Coach Meng said. “We’ve had personal best times quite a lot in the last few weeks of the season.”

During the regular season, the team had automatic qualifiers for state in the three relays while Sekavec and West had consideration times for state. All swam there but only the 400-yard freestyle made it to day two in the B Finals.

“The WAC becomes our biggest accomplishment and goal for the season,” Meng said. “We aren’t quite there at the state level, but it always gives our girls an opportunity to see where they need to get to if they want to compete at that level.”

WAC Swimmer of the Meet – Riley Sekavec, Garden City, Jr.

As the 2024 Western Athletic Conference girls’ swimming championship came to a close in Garden City, the host Lady Buffs were celebrating by jumping into the Garden City Family YMCA Pool.

All the team and head coach Jennifer Meng were in the water when it was annoounced that GCHS junior Riley Sekavec had won the Swimmer of the Meet award for earning the most points (2 individual event wins and swimming a leg on two winning relay teams).

Sekavec, though, didn’t hear her name announced so when a teammate told her, she was quite surprised.

“It was pretty cool because I was just getting out of the water,” Sekavec said. “The events I swam gave me a good chance to win the award.”

In fact, in winning the 500-yard freestyle, it marked the first time Sekavec had entered the event.

“We just decided the night before (WAC) that I would swim in it,” Sekavec said. “Even though it’s a grueling race, I was excited to be in the event. You just have to focus on each 50 (yards) to continue to keep the same speed.”

One of the biggest challenges in the meet is the recovery time between events, Sekavec said.

“Between the 100 breaststroke (which she also won) and the 400 relay, I only had one heat to rest, so that’s a real challenge,” Sekavec said. 

While she didn’t swim the 100-yard butterfly at WAC, Sekavec said she thinks it is her best event. But because there were swimmers from other schools with faster times, they opted to place her where the points could be earned.

“I think the fly is my event, but I also like the breast,” Sekavec said. “The fly is harder just because of the arm motion. The breast always seems slower because you’re in the water longer. It’s just harder to go faster.”

After two years of finishing second to Great Bend in the team race, Sekavec said it was satisfying to finally get the title.

“It’s a goal we’ve worked for and finally to accomplish that is such a good feeling,” Sekavec said.

With so many freshmen and sophomores on the team’s roster, Sekavec said she assumed more of a leadership role this year along with the lone senior, Lexi Arwine.

“She’s just really so supportive of all of us,” Sekavec said of Arwine. “I’ve learned a lot from her and want to continue that in the future.”

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Western Athletic Conference Championship

	SCHOOL	POINTS
1	Garden City	419
2	Great Bend	366
3	Hays	258
4	Dodge City	138
5	Liberal	97

ALL-WAC GIRLS SWIMMING TEAM 2024

EVENT	NAME	SCHOOL
200 Medley Relay	Heiman, West, Sekavec, Arwine	Garden City
200 Freestyle	Brylee West	Garden City
200 IM	Izabel Schmidt	Hays
50 Freestyle	Josephine Mazouch	Great Bend
100 Butterfly	Izabel Scmidt	Hays
100 Freestyle	Josephine Mazouch	Great Bend
500 Freestyle	Riley Sekavec	Garden City
200 Freestyle Relay	J. Mazouch, M. Mazouch, Kruckenberg, Hall	Great Bend
100 Backstroke	Emilee Hall	Great Bend
100 Breaststroke	Riley Sekavec	Garden City
400 Freestyle Relay	Meng, Arwine, Sekavec, West	Garden City