ThisWeek Hilliard Northwest News
February 21, 2013
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Swimming & Diving
Basketball
’Cats boys look to slow Greyhounds
Cook leads Darby to state By BRAD EMERINE THISWEEKSPORTS.COM
The Hilliard Darby High School boys swimming and diving team qualified for the Division I state meet in five events, and Hunter Cook had a hand in four of them. The junior won the 500-yard freestyle in 4 minutes, 37.8 seconds and was runner-up in the 200 individual medley (1:54.28) in the district meet Feb. 16 at Ohio State. Both times are program records. Cook is seeded seventh at state in the 200 IM and eighth in the 500 free. The top two placers in each swimming event at district automatically advanced to the state meet Thursday, Feb. 21, through Saturday, Feb. 23, at Branin Natatorium in Canton. In addition, 16 at-large state berths were awarded for each swimming event based on times statewide. The top three boys divers and top four girls divers also advanced to state. “Hunter is the first district champion in the history of Hilliard swimming, any of the schools,” said coach Brian Dickmann, who oversees the Darby, Bradley and Davidson boys and girls programs. “Both of his times also are allHilliard records. It was a great day in Hilliard swimming history because of the 25 swims the schools had combined, 22 were lifetime-bests. That’s 88 percent.” Darby junior Cory McLaughlin placed eighth in the 200 IM (1:58.07) to
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Josh Stimmel and the Davidson boys basketball team will play at 16th-seeded Grove City in the first round of the Division I district tournament Friday, Feb. 22. LORRIE CECIL/THISWEEKSPORTS
By AARON BLANKENSHIP loss to Marysville on Feb. 15 THISWEEKSPORTS.COM to fall to 5-17 overall, has not played Grove City this season Hilliard Davidson High but faced the Greyhounds in School boys basketball coach the postseason a year ago, winKevin Logsdon doesn't want ning 54-40 in the second round. Grove City enters the tourhis team to get caught in a highscoring, fast-paced game when nament on a five-game winit plays Grove City in its Divi- ning streak. It beat Pickeringsion I district tournament ton North in its regular-season finale 41-32 on Feb. 15 to opener. The Wildcats are seeded improve to 14-8, as 6-foot-5 33rd of 42 teams and travel to guard Brandon Bapst scored 16th-seeded Grove City for the 18 points. Other key players for Grove first round at 7 p.m. Friday, City include 6-4 forward Feb. 22. “This will be a nice chal- Devonta Thomas and 6-2 guard lenge for us because Grove City Christian Meister. “Grove City’s more of a fastlikes to get up and down the court a little more than most paced team that likes to push teams that we see,” Logsdon the ball and has very good said. “They like to run the floor shooters, so we’ll need to slow and they put a lot of defensive it down and play at our pace, just like we did last year,” said pressure on you. “I don’t want to try to beat 6-6 post player Michael Simon, Grove City at its own game. who is Davidson’s lone returnee We need to control the tempo and scored seven points against by executing our offense and Grove City in the postseason making sure we get good looks. matchup a year ago. “The We also need to limit their tran- biggest key is that we run our sition scoring by being disrup- half-court offense well. We tive on defense and making need to make the right passes them do things they aren’t com- and make sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves and turn it fortable doing.” Davidson, which closed the DAVIDSON >> B3 regular season with a 71-57
Hockey
Hilliard earns top seed for Blue Jackets Cup
The Hilliard club hockey team wrapped up its second consecutive Greater Columbus High School Club Hockey League championship with a 10-1 win over Athens on Feb. 17, earning the top seed for the Blue Jackets Cup. The Wildcats went 15-3-2 and earned 32 points in the GCHSCHL, as did SWIMMING >> B5 Newark. The Generals went 14-2-4 and
are seeded second for the Blue Jackets Cup, followed by Westerville (127-1, 25), Northeast (7-10-3, 17), PRPC (7-13, 14) and Athens (0-20, 0). The double-elimination tournament begins with two games Thursday, Feb. 21, at OhioHealth Ice Haus. PRPC plays Northeast at 5:30 p.m., followed by Westerville and Athens. On Friday, Feb. 22, at the Ice Haus,
the Westerville-Athens winner will play Newark at 6:20 p.m., followed by Hilliard and the PRPC-Northeast winner. On Saturday, Feb. 23, consolation games will take place at 10 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. at Chiller Ice Works and at 7:50 p.m. at Chiller Easton, and the winner’s bracket semifinal will be played at 6 p.m. at Chiller Easton.
The championship game is at 5 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 24, at Chiller North. A second championship game, if necessary, will be played at 7:20 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, at the Ice Haus. Newark is the defending champion, having defeated Hilliard 4-3 in the final last season.
–Dave Purpura