In the nine years since Charlie Ball started the swim team at Bigfork High School, she has only witnessed growth.
“Being able to start the team from scratch and then see how much we’ve been able to accomplish since then, you just don’t get to see that in a lot of sports programs,” Ball said.
As the only Class B school competing at the state swim meet, the Bigfork girls team punches above their weight, and for the second year in a row ended on the podium with a third-place finish at the Class A/B state swim meet in Great Falls on Feb. 11-12.
The swimmers at the state meet were a mix of newcomers, like senior twins Lilia and Mahali Kuzyk, and top returners, like Sydney Slawter and Sophi Logue.
“As a coach, after coming in second last year and being the only Class B school, I felt there was a lot of pressure on this year to perform and continue that great streak,” Ball said. “I was just trying to keep the expectations down for the girls, while also getting them ready to swim their fastest times at state.”
For Logue, a senior, it was hard to ignore the expectations that come with being a two-time defending champion, as well as being the first Valkyrie to win an individual title. Anyone watching her in the pool, however, would never have guessed she was feeling anything other than ready to win.
Despite not being the top seed coming into the state meet, Logue easily defended her title in the 100-butterfly, making it three in a row for the event. She followed up that performance with a win in the 100-breaststroke, a first-time state event for her.
“Sophi’s breaststroke just came out of nowhere,” Ball said. “The idea each year is to have your swimmers swim in every event just to see how they stack up against the others and Sophi’s first breaststroke ended up being the fastest time in Class A/B. So I told her, I guess that’s what you’re swimming this year.”
Logue won by two seconds, and her teammate, Lilia Kuzyk, had a third-place finish.
“One of the coolest things for me to watch this year was Lilia’s improvement,” Ball said, adding that she was seeded around 8th going into prelims and had to swim a season best just to make it into the final.
“Once she got into the final I told her that if she hit the same time, she could probably finish fifth, but instead she said she wanted to match Sophi’s time. She got close to that and finished third,” Ball said.
“It’s just exciting to see the success we’ve had and be able to get new swimmers interested,” Ball said.
Good things come to Lily Milner in threes.
For the second year in a row, Flathead’s Lily Milner had a target on her back as the top seed, and the two-time defending champion, in both the 100-freestyle and the 100-backstroke.
Unlike last year, when most regular season swim meets were conducted virtually, without competitors in the pool to push each athlete, Milner had spent this winter defeating her competition. But that didn’t prevent some nerves from cropping up.
Milner didn’t give into the nerves. When she dove into the pool at the starting command of the 100-freestyle, she kicked out hard into her typical performance: get out fast and finish faster. By the first turn in the 25-yard pool, she already had a substantial lead.
Milner has said in previous interviews that time slows down in the moments after her hand hits the touchpad on the wall and she’s able to turn around to watch her competitors’ final strokes.
“I just try to sit there and enjoy the moment of everyone coming into the wall,” Milner said. “It was pure relief.”
For Milner, that moment lasted a full three seconds.
In the final of the 100-backstroke, Milner again had a three-second moment of bliss.
“It’s like the water just moves out of her way,” Flathead swim Coach Karen Bouda has said about Milner. “When she swims, it’s not even close.”
With her two latest victories, the senior ends her high school swimming career as a triple-double state champion — only the sixth swimmer in Montana history to attain such a feat, and the second to do so this century. The only thing that disrupted Milner from becoming the first quadruple-double champion was five-time state-record holder Katharine Berkoff of Hellgate, whose performances in 2019 relegated Milner to second place.
This story has been updated to reflect that Milner is the 2nd triple-double champion this century. Butte’s Catherine Russo won the 100 fly and 50 free four straight times, but the MHSA record books have not been updated in several years.