Last season, moments after Bend High ended Summit’s 13-year stranglehold on the Intermountain Conference girls swimming district championship, Tamas Bessenyei made an observation: “Finally,” the Lava Bears coach said with both conviction and relief, “it’s Bend High’s turn.”

Bessenyei is not wavering from that sentiment.

It IS the Lava Bears’ turn – not just to be one-time champs but to become a Class 5A power. It is Bend’s turn, especially because the girls head into this weekend’s state meet as the defending state champions and the boys are coming off the program’s best-ever finish at state (second) with nearly the entire roster back from last season.

Summit has dominated 5A swimming since the state expanded to six classifications nine years ago. The Storm boys have won seven state titles since then, and Summit’s girls have won three, all within the past four years. Since the school opened in 2001, Summit boys and girls teams have combined to win 13 state championships. Since the OSAA first recognized swimming state champions in 1948, Bend High has won just two titles, and Mountain View has won three.

It seems, however, that the power Summit has owned for so long is beginning to shift east toward its intracity rivals.

“For sure,” Summit’s Merritt Allen agrees with a welcoming and upbeat tone. “It’s awesome to see other high schools grow and equalize, because it just makes us swim up there with them, too.”

This weekend, at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham, the Lava Bears could capture their second straight girls state championship — which would mark the program’s first run of back-to-back state titles — behind two-time 100-yard backstroke state winner Elli Ferrin and defending 100 breaststroke champion Emily Brockman. Bend is also poised to contend for its first boys state championship, led by Paul Rogers, the reigning state champ in both the 200 individual medley and the 500 freestyle.

But do not think Bessenyei is ready to celebrate just yet. After all, his Lava Bears, boys and girls, will have to battle the state’s top swimming programs — with Summit and Mountain View at the top of the list.

“This year, it’s going to be really, really close again because of how strong Summit is, and Mountain View’s got some great talent,” Bessenyei says. “It will be narrow. Close competition, which is really good.”

The Lava Bears’ primary challengers for the state crown are in their own backyard. The IMC district meet this past weekend in Bend featured many favorites for individual state titles, including Summit’s Allen, the 100 girls butterfly state champ last season, and Mountain View freshman Emma Brady, who won the 500 free Saturday at districts.

The talent at Bend, Mountain View and Summit — predominantly the product of some highly successful local swim clubs — is such that even the best swimmers at Redmond High and Ridgeview, the other two teams in the five-member IMC, find it next to impossible to break through at the district level. To come out of this district not only as a state qualifier but as the district’s No. 1 swimmer is no easy task, Brady says. But it is the perfect jump-start heading into the state meet.

“It really makes you think, (the district in which swimmers here compete) is in a really good place,” Brady says of the district. “It’s really motivational to know that, here, racing is going to be the best.”

Shortly after winning the boys butterfly, Mountain View’s Jonathan Davami described being a champion in the IMC as “an honor,” adding that there is no better conference in which to be a champion.

There is evidence to back Davami’s claim. Four years ago, this district (then known as Special District 1) produced five individual and relay 5A state champions. In the three state meets since, the district has boasted 10 champions in 2013, 12 in 2014 and 17 last season.

“It’s crazy,” Bend High’s Ferrin says of the IMC’s supremacy, adding that this past weekend’s district meet served more as a state preview than a district championship. Her Lava Bears teammate, Chyna Fish, agrees, noting that the Bend girls’ run to the state title last season was ignited by a somewhat surprising IMC district championship the week before.

“Everything just went, ‘BOOM!’” says Fish, this season’s district champ in the 50 and 100 freestyles. “That’s when our confidence changed.”

Last season, Bend senior Ben Brockman was the IMC winner in the 200 free and the 100 fly. He went on to place second and third at state, respectively. This year, for the second straight season, he heads into the state meet as a district champ in two events: the 100 and 200 free. This time around, however, he is more confident that he can win a state crown that has eluded him throughout his high school career — thanks in part, of course, to dedicated training, but also to the high level of competition in the IMC district.

“It’s just a motivator,” Summit’s Allen says of the IMC’s effect on swimmers. “It’s supposed to be fun and fast. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Allen, like every other swimmer in the IMC, receives that very experience each season. This weekend at the Class 5A state championships, the IMC — the district of champions, when it comes to swimming — will continue to make its case as perhaps one of the deepest and most competitive conferences in the state, regardless of classification.

With a smile, Allen emphatically nods her head. She laughs and says: “I love our district.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com.