Cyclone swimmers break records, send one to state
Published 9:38 am Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Contributed Photo Ell Nekvasil leads off the 200 medley relay at the Littles Meet. Teammates Holly Holsclaw, Adriana Steponavicius, and Cara Carr await their leg of the relay while Tripp Trivette and Louis Trivette look on.
Contributed Photo Liam Cannon competes in the 100 breaststroke.
Contributed Photo Holly Holsclaw swims the butterfly.
Contributed Photo Adriana Steponavicius competes in the 100 freestyle.
Contributed Photo Ell Nekvasil swims the backstroke.
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The Elizabethton High School swim team finished its regular season over the course of two Saturdays in January. The 18th of January saw the Cyclones compete against 12 schools in the Northeast Tennessee Regional Championship at the Kingsport Aquatic Center. The swimmers each swam their events in the preliminary session that morning, hoping to place in the top 16 in order to return to the final session that evening. All 16 members of the team achieved this goal, which meant that every member of the team scored points toward the final team results.
The 13 members of the girls’ team scored 287 points, just eight points ahead of their biggest rival, Tennessee High School, to place third in the meet behind Science Hill (462.5 points) and Dobyns-Bennett (367 points). The first event of the night, the 200 medley relay, brought together backstroker Ell Nekvasil, breaststroker Trinity Hopwood, butterflier Holly Holsclaw, and freestyler Adriana Steponavicius to place third. This relay team had broken the school’s record in the event earlier in the season with a time of 2:05.44 at Tennessee High and came just nine one-hundredths of a second from doing so again in the championship.
Six members of the girls’ team and all three members of the boys’ team earned All-Conference recognition for their individual performances in the meet:
- Adriana Steponavicius – Second Team All-Conference: 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle
- Ell Nekvasil – Second Team All-Conference: 200 individual medley; Third Team All-Conference: 100 backstroke
- Mia Whaley – Third Team All-Conference: 50 freestyle and 100 breaststroke
- Madeline Isaacs – Third Team All-Conference: 100 freestyle and 100 breaststroke
- Trinity Hopwood – Third Team All-Conference: 500 freestyle and 100 breaststroke
- Holly Holsclaw – Third Team All-Conference: 100 butterfly
- Liam Cannon – First Team All-Conference: 100 breaststroke; Third Team All-Conference: 100 freestyle
- Tripp Trivette – Second Team All-Conference: 200 freestyle; Third Team All-Conference: 100 butterfly
- Louis Trivette – Second Team All-Conference: 200 freestyle
Closing out the night’s individual events, Liam Cannon, as the No. 1-seeded competitor, was able to choose the song that would play as he and his fellow competitors made their way to the blocks from the ready room. His choice—the theme song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—added to the anticipation of the event. Cannon out-touched second-place finisher Cam Sewell from Dobyns-Bennett by just 0.36 seconds, breaking his own school record set during prelims, qualifying for the state championship meet with a time of 1:02.07 and becoming the regional champion in the event.
The last event of the night, the 400 freestyle relay, composed of sophomores Steponavicius, Holsclaw, and Isaacs, along with freshman Hopwood, broke the school record by 4.39 seconds to place third. All three school relay records were broken this season, with the third, the 200 freestyle relay, beaten by 1.98 seconds at Tennessee High in early December. That record now stands at 1:52.96 by the team of Isaacs, Hopwood, Jasey Hyatt, and Steponavicius.
The following weekend, the Cyclone swimmers traveled to Virginia High to compete in the Littles meet, a competition designed for only small public schools. Eleven schools, including Elizabethton, competed in the meet. The Cyclone girls won. The boys, with only three members, placed fifth.
The 2024-25 swim season will conclude this weekend in Knoxville, where every school—private, public, large, and small—with qualifying swimmers will compete in the Tennessee Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association (TISCA) State Championship at the Allan Jones Aquatic Center. Cannon will be the lone Cyclone representing Elizabethton when he competes in the 100 breaststroke on Saturday morning. He will bring a contingency of eight teammates who earned the trip over the course of the season, along with coaches Kelli Broussard and Sheila Nelson, to motivate and support his efforts.
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