INDIANAPOLIS – If Friday night’s preliminaries of the IHSAA Girls Swimming State Finals were any indication, those in attendance Saturday are in for a real treat.

In one of the fastest prelims in state history, five event records were rewritten and seven swimmers in all broke a state record throughout the meet. As the tone was set with all the speed – mostly flashed by juggernaut Carmel – Wawasee’s Bre Robinson positioned herself to make a run at a state title in two events while a handful of locals will also swim on day two of the finals.

One of the records to go down was in the backstroke, where Claire Adams lowered her own state mark with a Friday time of 53.38, a full second ahead of Robinson’s 54.37. The time from the Wawasee junior dropped her own school record she set last week at the Concord Sectional, and sits as the second-fastest time at the finals, ahead of Carmel’s Hanna House’s 55.01.

Robinson also has a fighting chance in the butterfly after posting a 54.02 to land third. Vanessa Krause of Chesterton is the top seed after posting a 53.74 and Munster’s Nicole Smith is right behind at 53.81. The rub, however, is the top seven times posted Friday were all within a second of one another, leaving the event up in the air.

“Claire took her first 50 out in 26.2 and Bre took hers out in 26.1, so it is just going to come down to the second 50 and the finish,” noted Wawasee head coach Julie Robinson of the backstroke. “With Claire having that really long reach, it is really vital for Bre to have a big finish.”

Wawasee will have three more events in service Saturday, and Paige Miller will be in all three of them. Miller, just a freshman, posted 15th place times in both the 500 (5:03.09) and the individual medley (2:07.21). Miller also swam the third leg of the 400 free relay, which Wawasee’s Kendra Miller, Kayla Hershberger and Robinson rallied to claim 14th at 3:35.05, which is just a second off the Wawasee record, but a big rally late from Miller and Robinson salvaged a consoles appearance.

Wawasee’s other active event, the 200 free relay, tied with Yorktown for 23rd overall at 1:14.15. Swimming the relay for Wawasee were both Millers, Mikala Mawhorter and Shelby Adams.

“Indiana right now just has so many incredibly fast swimmers,” coach Robinson stated. “I don’t know if its the overall training in Indiana, or just these kids starting at a young age. This is a really special group of kids and we saw some incredible swims today.”

Warsaw will also have Saturday action for the first time in several years.

Freshman Brenna Morgan swam in four events Friday night, and both of her individual efforts landed consolation qualifications.

Morgan’s 50 freestyle time of 24.15 tied Grace Haskett of Columbus North for the final spot in the consoles in 15th place, and just .12 fast enough from the dreaded cut line. Morgan’s time, however, set the new Warsaw school standard in the event which Morgan has been establishing all season.

In the 100 freestyle, Morgan timed in at 52.60, which placed 16th and was only .06 ahead of Jay County’s Anne Vormohr, who will watch the 100 finals from the stands.

“She can still get ninth,” said a jovial Warsaw head coach Nate Long of Morgan’s Saturday possibilities. “She has nothing to lose. Why not go for it?”

Morgan anchored both of Warsaw’s relays, swimming with Cynthia Juarez, Ashley Van Wormer and Erin Sandberg for a 1:44.11, 30th place showing in the 200 free relay. And in the medley relay, Van Wormer, Morgan, Sandberg and Megan Bixler placed 32nd at 1:57.29.

Van Wormer and Juarez swam their final races of their careers Friday night as the seniors failed to qualify in the top 16 in their individual sequences.

Van Wormer posted a 1:07.52 in one of her best individual swims in the breaststroke, finishing 24th. More importantly for Van Wormer, she was named as one of 25 girls swimmers to earn Academic All-State by the Indiana Coaches of Girls Sports Association. Van Wormer is currently carrying a 12.5 GPA on a 12-scale at WCHS. Other regional swimmers named to the list were Meghan Cohoon of South Bend St. Joseph’s and Katelyn Gutwein of Homestead.

Juarez continued to hover around her maximum output in the 500 freestyle, clocking 5:29.22 and taking 28th overall in her second year of swimming in the event at state.

Long wasn’t disappointed in the least with just Morgan getting through to Saturday, preferring to look at the bright side of his team’s output.

“I would love to say it was just about Brenna making it to Saturday, but it’s not,” Long said. “It was Brenna, and it was everybody who swam today. We had five kids in the pool, and all five did awesome. That is all you can ask when you come down to a state finals.”

Carmel are primed and positioned to grab its 28th consecutive team state title, which would sit just one behind the famed boys swimming program at Honolulu Punahou High program that won titles from 1958-86.

The Lady Greyhound medley relay (1:41.17), Adams in the 200 (1:46.96) and backstroke (53.38), and Amy Bilquist in the 50 (22.15) and 100 (49.06) has Carmel sitting pretty to roll on after all those times were new state records. The Carmel 200 free relay team (1:33.82) are also a top seed heading into Saturday.

Bethany Galat of Penn is the top seed in the IM (1:59.97) and breaststroke (1:00.67), Hannah Kukurugya of Crown Point in the 500 (4:51.76) and Zionsville is the top seed in the 400 free relay at 3:24.33, but Crown Point and Carmel are both within .64 of the Lady Eagles.

Alex Cleveland of Zionsville also broke the state record in the 50 at 22.69 before Bilquist later lowered the mark, which Cleveland’s 49.69 in the 100 again met the state mark before Bilquist posted a faster time.

Locally, making Saturday swims were Bremen’s Katie Lafferty, landing 11th in both the 50 (23.89) and 100 (51.78) and Katie Hughes of Northridge, who slipped into the consolation round of the 500 with a 16th place time of 5:03.74.