Fortkamp eyes state again

A freshman continued the trend last year of Indians swimming at the state meet.

Her coach is hopeful the youngster can make it an annual trip.

Fort Recovery High School sophomore Teigen Fortkamp will guide a small Tribe swim team as it opens its season Saturday in the Celina Sprints meet held at Jay County.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what she does her sophomore year,” FRHS coach Mindy Bubp said. “I’ll have her do the freestyle events like she has in the past but branch out to backstroke and other events to see what else she can do.”

As an individual, Fortkamp placed 18th in the 50-yard freestyle in the OHSAA Division II state meet with a time of 24.61 seconds after setting a school record of 24.48 seconds from the district meet a week earlier.

She also helped the 200 freestyle relay place 16th, joining seniors Paige Fortkamp (her sister), Autumn Burk and Ava Bubp for a time of 1 minute, 42.32 seconds.

Audra Bubp, Mindy’s junior daughter, qualified for the district meet in the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke, and mother expects her to reprise those roles again this year.

Melissa Laux is the only senior for the girls, and she’s taking up diving this year.

“It’s been fun to watch her dive,” Bubp said, noting Laux will also be a freestyle sprinter and help with the relays. “I’m hoping she can get to 11 dives and do fairly well for us.”

(Divers must have 11 dives in their repertoire to compete at invitationals and in the postseason.)

Junior Abby Knapke is in line to handle the freestyle and breaststroke events, while freshmen Joelle Kaup and Allison Knapke will handle more of the distance freestyle races.

Bubp also said Kaup will be a backstroker, and Nevaeh Lennartz will be a butterfly swimmer.

“We’ll see how well we’re doing,” Bubp said. “We’ll be looking to try to do well individually and see how the postseason goes and see if we can get some relays together.

“Hopefully we can see what Teigen can do in the postseason.”

Fort Recovery’s boys only have three members in senior Isaac Knapke, junior Isaac LeFevre and sophomore Sage Wendel.

“Obviously we can’t have relays,” Bubp said. “We’re going to focus more on individual goals as far as improving times and improving strokes.”

Knapke was close to making it to district last season in the breaststroke, so Bubp said that’ll be a goal for him as well as chasing the school record.

LeFevre is more of a middle-distance swimmer as well as a breaststroker, and Wendel is primarily a distance swimmer.

While the Indians may not score a ton of points this season, Bubp said she enjoys the team she’s got.

“I actually have a great group of kids,” she said. “They're really focused on improving their individual times and having fun this season.

“I think they’re pretty self-motivated kids. They’re all very good. They all get along really well (and) I think we have a really great team.”