Otto takes 6th in 50 Free; Travelbee finishes highest of any CHS diver
YPSILANTI – The Coldwater Cardinal boys swim and dive team put an emphatic bow on their record breaking 2024-25 season this past weekend as six swimmers and two divers traveled to the campus of Eastern Michigan University for the Michigan High School Athletic Association (MHSAA) Division 3 state finals.
The contingent of six swimmers and two divers sent to the state finals is one of the largest group of athletes that Coldwater has ever sent to the swim and dive state finals.
The MHSAA state swim and dive state finals is a two-day event, with preliminaries on day one, followed by the finals on day two for those who qualify.
In preliminary swims on day one, Coldwater’s weekend started off with their 200-yard medley relay team consisting of Taylor Eberts, Cooper Otto, Mason Grabowski, and Mason Sabaitis, who improved on their pre-state tournament seed times with a season-best time, finishing three spots higher from their prelim qualifier in 23rd place in a time of 1:47.14.
Eberts then had a quick turnaround for an individual event, competing in the prelims in the 200 freestyle, where he qualified for day two of competition with a 15th place finish, finishing in a time of 1:51.60.
Otto took his turn swimming in an individual event as the junior took to the pool for the 50 freestyle. Otto not only qualified for day two of the state finals in the event, but he also broke the Coldwater High School swim team record in the process, finishing the preliminary round in sixth place with a new school record time of 21.75 seconds.
Eberts went on to swim in his second individual event of the state finals, finishing in 23rd place in the 100 freestyle in a time of 50.52 seconds.
Coldwater then made history in the pool as the first relay team in school history advanced to day two of the tournament, as the 200-freestyle relay team of Grabowski, Sabaitis, Eberts and Otto qualified for the finals on day two with their 14th place finish in a time of 1:32.79.
To finish out the swimming portion of day one it was Otto swimming in his second individual event, finishing in 18th place in the 100 backstroke in a time of 57.17 seconds, less than a half a second off of a qualifying time.
Coldwater then capped off day one with another Cardinal first in the pool as s freshman Benny Travelbee became the first Coldwater boys diver to advance to day two of competition with his 11th place finish in the 1-meter dive prelims with a score of 145.75.
Day two of the two-day tournament kicked off with Eberts setting a new team record in the 200 freestyle, taking 11th place in a new CHS record time of 1:49.70.
Only minutes later it was junior Cooper Otto becoming the first Coldwater boys swimmer to earn all-state honors, finishing in sixth place in the 50 freestyle in a time of 21.82 seconds.
To only add to the day’s success after the all-state honor, it was freshman Benny Travelbee becoming the highest placing boy diver in school history, finishing in 14th place on the 1-meter board with a score of 289.45.
To finish out the widely respectable weekend it was the 200-freestyle relay team of Grabowski, Sabaitis, Eberts, and Otto claiming another CHS school record, taking 10th place in the state with a new CHS record time of 1:31.87.
The Coldwater boys finished off their Division 3 state finals with the highest point total in school history, taking 14th place as a team with 36 points. The team from Cranbrook Kingswood took home the state title with a team score of 357, with Holland Christian in second place with 282.5 points.
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