Girls swimming: Munster’s Gilbert has strong showing at state finals

• Reprints

Updated: March 13, 2012 10:40AM

INDIANAPOLIS — Munster’s Brittany Gilbert needed to win a swim-off on Friday night with LaPorte’s Carly Jackson in order to reach the championship race of Saturday’s 100 fly at the IHSAA Girls Swimming State Finals.

She took advantage of the win as best she could, finishing third in the best area individual finish behind the two state titles won by Chesterton’s Olivia Kabacinski.

Gilbert ended up swimming five events on Friday night because of the swim-off. Gilbert and Jackson each finished in 56.64 seconds in the preliminaries to tie for eighth place. The top eight advance to the championship race while finishers 9-16 go to the consolation.

“I was just glad that I got another chance to make the final heat, because if I got ninth and it was for sure, I would have been really upset about that,” she said. “But since I had that chance to make the top eight, I was really glad. I wanted to tear it up and win it and make the top eight.”

“She handled the swim-off real well,” Munster coach Matt Pavlovich said. “She swam the 400 relay, had about a 20-minute break, then went out and swam that swim-off against Carly Jackson from LaPorte, did a real nice job.

“She’s not always a real big prelim swimmer, if we could just get her through prelims, get her confidence up, obviously get her in the top eight so she can get a shot. She seems to do a lot better when we get her in the top eight.”

Indeed. After defeating Jackson, 56.13 to 56.45 in the swim-off, Gilbert improved her time to 55.81 seconds on Saturday.

“I honestly did not think I’d place that well in the fly,” Gilbert said. “Because I went in with a swim-off, so I was like, ‘I’ll be happy just to be in the top 8.’ But when I finished that well and everyone was so close, I was overwhelmed. It was awesome.

“It being my last high school meet made me want to go out there and give it my all. I just went in with a clear mind and didn’t think much about it. I just wanted to have fun and swim fast.”

Jackson finished 10th overall in the fly.

State record: Neither Gilbert nor second-place finisher Hanna House of Carmel swam fast enough to catch Wawasee senior Brittany Robinson.

Robinson set the lone state record on Saturday, winning the fly in 53.41.

That was half a second better than the previous record, set by Lafayette Harrison’s Jenny Connolly in 2008.

Robinson’s title was the first state title for a girl swimmer from Wawasee.

Beatable Carmel: Not everything went right for state champion Carmel.

The Greyhounds had won each relay event in each of the previous three state finals. But Zionsville broke that streak with a win in the 200 free relay on Saturday.

It was Zionsville’s first state relay title. But Carmel would win the 400 relay to close the meet.

Other notes: Franklin’s Abby Smith won the mental attitude award. … Carmel’s streak of state titles is the longest active streak in the nation.