Victory is sweet for Nick Orf and the Parkway Central Colts

Parkway Central senior Nick Orf ended his high school swimming career on a high note.

Orf successfully defended his state championship in the 200 IM. However, he cherishes the second consecutive state win in the 200 IM relay as well as being part of the winning 400 free relay.

Orf competed with his fellow Colts in the recent Missouri boys swimming and diving championships at the St. Peters Rec-Plex.

“Winning a relay is much more exciting than winning an individual state championship in my opinion,” Orf said. “You always have those three other guys to share in it, and we also get a big Missouri state plaque that I think is pretty awesome. It’s so great to win a relay state championship because I feel like more recognition goes to the school.”

The 200 medley relay team was composed of junior Riley Brown doing the backstroke, senior Brandon Weissman doing the breaststroke, Orf doing the butterfly and junior Zach Rogers doing the freestyle. Their winning time was 1 minute, 36.81 seconds. It was the first event of the state meet.

However the addition to Rogers made the difference.

“We didn’t realize Zach, our teammate from Parkway Swim Club, would be joining our team because he was moving,” Orf said. “We all swam exceptionally well, especially Brandon, who we put in the breaststroke, which is not his best stroke. We did not get a school record, but we came very close to last year’s time, missing it by a little over a half-second.

“We were all excited to have won, but we also had to focus on the rest of the meet. After a moment of celebrating, we all jumped back into the pool to warm down because Zach had the 200 free immediately afterward and Brandon and I had the 200 IM.”

Indeed. Two races later, Orf defended his championship in the 200 IM with a winning time of 1:51.44.

“I was really happy that I could defend my state title, even though it wasn’t as fast as I swam last year, so I did not break my own school record,” Orf said. “I wanted to break that state record, so seeing that I hadn’t even gone a best time was a little disappointing.”

Orf thought the Colts also could win state. Instead, they finished second to powerful Rockhurst with 203.5 points.

The same foursome that won the 200 IM relay, won the last event of the state meet – the 400 free relay, with a time of 3:11.84.

“It was a pretty awesome race,” Orf said. “I had never been on a winning 400 free relay and after losing Larkins and Biggs, I didn’t think we had a chance. But once again Zach Rogers joined the team and Riley Brown stepped up and we were able to win it. I never thought of myself as a freestyler, so it’s pretty cool to win a 400 free relay.”

For his second event, Orf swam in the 100 butterfly. He finished second.

“I thought about not doing the 100 fly this year because I had other options where I could possibly win an event, but I decided to stick with it,” Orf said. “The 200 fly is my real best event but I love swimming fly no matter what the distance. And if I didn’t swim it I would have missed out on racing my friend Andrew Sansoucie (the race’s winner). He and I have raced in that event for a long time both in club and high school swimming.”

Just like that, Orf is done with prep swimming. It’s been a great ride for him. He will be swimming next at the University of Minnesota where he plans to major in electrical or computer engineering.