(St. Leon, IN) – Fifteen girls swim teams gathered at East Central High School Thursday for preliminary qualifying heats and Saturday for consolation and championship final heats of the 2026 IHSAA sectional.
The East Central sectional group of schools is one of the more competitive sectionals in the state featuring swim talent from the Bloomington area across South Central and Southeastern Indiana to Dearborn County.
Swimming is one of the few sports remaining as a single class sport without any divisions, large schools versus small schools.
Milan’s Lady Indians placed a respectable seventh place out of the 15 teams. Veteran Head Coach Steve Stock was voted as Co-Coach of the Year and the Lady Indians recorded some career best times throughout the sectional.
TEAM SCORES
- Bloomington South 513
- East Central 382
- Columbus North 262
- Edgewood 241
- Bloomington North 212
- Greensburg 155
- Milan 120
- South Dearborn 83
- Batesville 81
- Lawrenceburg 76
- Rising Sun 55
- Oldenburg 22
- Trinity Lutheran 20
TOP EVENT RESULTS FOR MILAN
- 200 Medley Relay of Taylor Stock, Kami Laws, Molly Knecht and Kaitlynn Hicks dropped 0.43 seconds to finish in 6th place
- 200 Freestyle – Sophomore Lainey Stock dropped 0.81 seconds for an 11th place finish in the consolation heat.
- 200 IM – Freshman Taylor Stock raced to a 13th place standing
- 50 Freestyle – Junior Kaitlynn Hicks dropped 0.42 to finish 13th
- 100 Fly – Junior Molly Knecht recorded a career best in Thursday’s prelims and finished in 10th on Saturday
- 100 Freestyle – Hicks again competed in the consolation heat and finished 16th
- 500 Freestyle – Lainey Stock dropped nearly two seconds to secure a career best time of 5:57.92 in finishing 11th
- 200 Free Relay of Lainey Stock, Kami Laws, Jordyn Huebner and Ashlyn DeWire (2 freshmen and 2 sophomores) dropped over 3 seconds from Thursday’s run to finish 6th overall
- 100 Backstroke – Taylor Stock dropped 0.25 sec in the championship finals to achieve an impressive 6th place while Molly Knecht finished in 14th
- 400 Freestyle Relay of Taylor Stock, Lainey Stock, Kaitlynn Hicks and Ashlyn DeWire dropped 2.33 seconds and placed 7th in the championship finals.
Milan’s team has no seniors so the entire team will return next year along with some new additions from the middle school team.
Congratulations to Bloomington South, the sectional team champion and to all competing Southeastern Indiana swimmers, especially seniors who swam their final meet.
(Information provided by Steve Knecht/Milan Swimming)