SAN ANTONIO – The Bishop Lynch women's swim team traveled to Alamo City and competed in the TAPPS Division 1 State Championship and finished runner-up for the second consecutive year, outscoring last year's team by 113 points.

As with most everything in athletics this year, the TAPPS State Swim Meet structure changed significantly, meaning the team and Coach Mann had to take a completely different approach to how they would train, coach, and prepare for the meet. To say they succeeded would be an understatement. The Friars walked away from the meet with eight first places, three second places, a third place, winning every relay and having the meet's top two swimmers. Not to mention all the school, TAPPS and pool records our women broke.

Stella Todd and Hadley Beeson showed the state once again why they are both verbally committed to top NCAA programs. Todd was named the Bruce Rollins Swimmer of the Meet, and Beeson finished second. They both were a part of the 400 freestyle relay that broke the school, TAPPS and pool record. Beeson would also break school records in the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle relay, while Todd would break the school record in the 100 butterfly.

The action began with the 200 medley relay. Freshman Amie Perna, freshman Hannah Whitney, junior Stella Todd and senior Sophie Robertson swam for the Friars and started the meet off with a bang, as they finished in first. Bishop Lynch would continue to get first place in six of the next seven events.

Hadley Beeson and Abby Beeson, in their first official race together, finished first and second in the 200 freestyle. Perna and Whitney followed that with another 1-2 finish in the 200 IM. Todd would then swim her record-breaking butterfly to give the Friars their fourth first place. Hadley Beeson would follow Todd's record by setting the school record, finishing first in the 100 freestyle. Todd would then be up in the most grueling event of the day, the 500 freestyle. She would win the race with ease beating the second-place swimmer by over 12 seconds.

The next relay proved to be the most exciting race of the day. The Friars 200 freestyle relay team consisted of Abby Beeson, Hanna Whitney, Emily Zajick and Hadley Beeson. The Friars held a narrow lead after the first two swimmers, but Houston St. Agnes pulled away with their third swimmer. When St. Agnes's anchor was already in the water, the Friars' anchor, Hadley Beeson, was still on the starting block. Beeson would swim the fastest split of all 64 swimmers (23.41) to steal the gold away from Agnes, winning by 0.46 seconds.

The day's final race for the women was the 400 freestyle relay; BL's team consisted of Perna, Abby Beeson, Todd and Hadley Beeson. These ladies crushed the competition, beating second place by 20 seconds, on their way to breaking the Bill Walter SCY Pool record, the TAPPS Division 1 record and a school record with a time of 3:31.82.

Congratulations to all the swimmers, coaches, administrators and parents who worked tirelessly to make this event possible. With every individual top three and only one senior on the three relay teams, Bishop Lynch is not going anywhere, and they cannot wait for the 2021-2022 season.

 
Complete results from the state meet: https://tapps.biz/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/d1-state-final-results-2021-with-team-scores.pdf