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Summit High School swimmer Nic Morrell looks at the timing board, after winning the 200 Freestyle at the District Swim Meet at Juniper Swim Center in Bend Saturday afternoon.
Andy Tullis / The Bulletin
Eye of the Storm
Swimmer Nic Morrell looks to close out a great prep career
By Beau Eastes / The Bulletin
Published: February 15. 2010 4:00AM PSTStanding out on Summit's boys swim team is not the easiest thing to do.
Summit claimed its sixth Intermountain Conference district title in seven years on Saturday and will be going for the school's sixth boys state championship this weekend. The Storm, which have won the last two Class 5A state championships and are favorites to three-peat at this weekend's state meet in Gresham, are loaded with talent. Mason Allen is the reigning 5A state champion in the 100-yard butterfly and 100 breaststroke. Paul Hartmeier is looking for his second straight 500 freestyle state title.
On a team of excellent swimmers, though, Nic Morrell is tough to miss.
The Storm senior will compete for his fifth and sixth individual state titles at Mt. Hood Community College this weekend, in addition to racing on two Summit relay teams with state title aspirations. If Morrell is able to pull off four first-place finishes during the state finals on Saturday, he will end his prep career with a staggering 11 individual and relay state championships.
“This year I'd really like to get the four golds,” says Morrell, who will defend his 2009 state titles in the 100 backstroke and 200 freestyle as well as race on the Storm's 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay squads at the state meet. “I've never quite been able to do that.”
But he has been close.
As a freshman, Morrell helped the Storm to a runner-up finish at the 5A state meet in 2007 with a victory in the 100 backstroke. He also swam legs on Summit's 200 medley relay team that finished second, as well as the Storm's 400 freestyle relay squad that placed third. Morrell was the only Summit swimmer to win at state that year, an accomplishment he did after Storm coach Amy Halligan half-jokingly told him to “win an event so I can hang a medal around someone's neck.” (At the state meet, when a swimmer wins an event his or her coach gets to hand out the medals for that event during the award ceremony.)
“You give him a task and he goes out and does it,” Halligan recalls with a laugh. “He came back after that race and just said, ‘That's what you said to do.' ”
In 2008, Morrell led the Storm to their fourth overall boys state title, posting a win in the 200 freestyle as well as competing on Summit's victorious 200 medley relay and 400 freestyle relay squads.
And then last year, Morrell helped the Storm defend their state crown, winning both the 200 freestyle and 100 backstroke. Morrell also helped Summit break its own 5A-state meet record in the 200 medley relay.
“This year we'd really like to get that third (consecutive state title),” says Morrell about a win that would equal the Storm boys' state title run from 2003 to 2005.
Having dominated the 5A boys swim scene for the past two seasons, Morrell and his teammates entered the 2009-10 campaign battling against history as much as other competitors in the pool. The current Storm boys squad looks to equal Summit's previous back-to-back-to-back state title run, a team that was led by Morrell's older brother Nolan, who went on to have an all-American career at Tennessee.
“Yeah, we're kind of swimming against them,” the younger Morrell says about his brother's class. “We've got our group and my brother had his group. All of the guys I've been swimming, we're trying to break (the older swimmers') records.”
Morrell's quest for four first-place finishes and a third consecutive team title is truly a family affair. Only one other Summit swimmer has ever won four gold medals at the state meet: Nolan Morrell.
“It'd be a pretty cool accomplishment to live up to,” Morrell says about matching his brother's four top finishes at state.
A competitive swimmer since he was 9 years old, Morrell says he realized swimming could be his ticket to a college scholarship by the time he was 14. He has taken official college visits to Tennessee and Arizona State and plans on visiting more schools once the high school season is over.
“Look at his size,” Halligan says abut the 6-foot-2-inch Morrell and his potential for college. “He's got tree-trunk legs, but he's still just a puppy. His upper body hasn't caught up yet.”
For now, though, Morrell hopes to cap his remarkable high school career with another championship trophy and keep Halligan busy on Saturday handing out medals.
“I just want to be as fast as I can,” Morrell says. “And get those four golds.”
Beau Eastes can be reached at 541-383-0305 or beastes@bendbulletin.com.
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