By Susan Carroll

Review Writer

The Lake Orion High School girls varsity swim team hosted Midland National Dow on Oct. 3, with the Dragon swimmers shouting “go…go…go” at ear-deafening decibels to encourage their fellow athletes to swim strong, swift and hard.

In the 200-yard medley relay, Lake Orion came in 2nd with a time of 1:56:63, just edged out of 1st by Midland’s time of 1:55:78. Racing for the team were Olivia Cassise, Emily Diener, Claire Abbasse and Riley Sieber.

The 200-yard freestyle, with a 1st and 2nd place finish for LO, went to Eliana Ritt, with a time of 2:03.66, and Hannah Quinn at 2:08.21.

Claire Abbasse qualified for the D1 state cut in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 58.70.

The ladies swam their way to a 1st place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay. With a time of 1:42.27, the relay swimmers Claire Abbasse, Claire Wojno. Olivia Cassise and Eliana Ritt qualified for the D1 state meet.

Lake Orion dominated the 1 meter dive at the meet as Colleen Campbell led the

Abbasse sets Oakland County record and earns her two more scoring

Contributing Writer Amy Ritt

Swimming at home on Oct. 7, junior Claire Abbasse added two more Oakland County championships to her career wins with a record-breaking performance of 23.55 seconds in the 50 freestyle, which was a new county record, and her third consecutive first-place finish at counties in the 100 freestyle with a time of 51.12 seconds.

Abbasse led the LOHS girls’ swim and dive team to an eleventh -place finish at the highly competitive Oakland County Championship meet.

“I was happy with our team’s overall performance,” said head coach Darin Abbasse. “The girls never gave up and competed against some of the best athletes in the state.”

The Lady Dragons also had two relays that earned All-County recognition. Sophomore Olivia Cassise (backstroke) and senior co-captains Hannah Quinn (breaststroke) and Eliana Ritt (butterfly) swam with Abbasse (freestyle) to earn eighth place in the 200 medley relay. Cassise, Ritt and Abbasse also teamed with freshman Riley Sieber to capture eighth place in the 400-freestyle relay.

The 200 freestyle relay team of Quinn, Sieber, senior Claire Wojno and junior Emily Diener placed 15th.

Senior co-captain Megan Buckner (breaststroke) also competed in this year’s county meet. Several of the swimmers earned season-best and personal-best times in their individual events as well.

On the diving side, senior Colleen Campbell and junior Savannah Papp represented the Lady Dragons. The girls’ next meet is at home on Oct. 12 against Harrison.