Chase Knopf’s last two individual high school swims were his best two.
Ryle’s senior finished his high school career Friday at the University of Kentucky’s Lancaster Aquatic Center with a pair of KHSAA state titles. He won the 200-yard freestyle in a school-record and personal best 1 minute, 37.76 seconds and the 500 in 4:24.97.
“It feels incredible,” Knopf said. “I’ve been chasing these state titles since I was in seventh grade.”
Knopf’s wins were his only high school championships. He remembers the first state meet five years ago.
“I was, like, ‘oh my gosh, this is insane,’” Knopf said. “I’ve gotten unlucky every time, and to see everything line up for the first time and work out – it feels really good.”
For Knopf, Friday was about a 20-kilometer open water distance better than 2025’s third place in the 200 and second in the 500.
“I mean, this is what I’ve been working towards my … I guess six years here at Ryle now,” Knopf said after the winning the 200.
The 500 was as much a Northern Kentucky Clippers practice session at Silverlake: The Family Place in Erlanger. Beechwood senior Cono Presti was second in 4:35.68.
“I couldn’t do it without my (Clippers) teammates like Cono here,” Knopf said. “I could not have gone that time if it weren’t for both of us grinding in the pool every day and going for what we both drive to do.”
Presti was equally giddy – especially because he and Knopf held off St. Xavier and Trinity.
“I mean, it’s always been people that, you know, we always got beat by, and I guess it’s kind of nice to see a change,” Presti said. “I mean, I respect those guys, they train just as hard as we do; it’s just, I think we pushed a little harder today, and we finally got where we wanted to be.”
St. Xavier’s Carter Rankin, who finished nearly two seconds behind Knopf in the 200 final, was less than a second ahead of Knopf in the 200 morning preliminaries.
“I could definitely tell after this morning, like, I felt good,” Knopf said. “ … I had a lot of room for improvement, so I felt very confident coming into tonight knowing I could produce how I wanted to produce on that.”
From the 200’s opening strokes, Knopf never trailed Rankin; he led by nearly two seconds after 100 yards. Same story in the 500 – he led Presti by two seconds after 200 yards.
Third place again
For the 38th time, St. Xavier overwhelmingly won the team title. The Tigers finished with 489 points, and Louisville Eastern was second with 181.
Ryle, meanwhile, continued what has become a tradition – the Raiders took third for the fourth straight year.
“Third for the fourth year in a row, we can’t complain,” Ryle head coach Jeff Floyd said. “We were right there, six points behind second. We were two points behind second two years ago.
“Four straight years in the top three, it’s the best we’ve ever done.”
Highlands was fourth with 139.5 points – the best finish since the Bluebirds took second in 2020 and 2021.
“We were fifth last year, we got fourth this year,” Highlands coach Kevin Kampschmidt said. “That’s improving.”
Covington Catholic was ninth with 87 points.
An NKY trio
Three Northern Kentucky 1-meter divers finished in the top eight.
Simon Kenton senior Isaiah Reinhart finished second behind state champion Graham Leslie of Lexington Catholic. Dixie Heights freshman Austin Maley was fourth, and Ryle junior Wes Hampel was seventh.
Reinhart said the back 1 ½ somersault with 1 ½ twists, was his best dive; he went with it at the end of each round.
“I put my best into that,” Reinhart said.
Austin Hall coaches divers for Kenton County’s three high schools – Simon Kenton, Dixie Heights and Scott. He received a surprise Friday – the Kentucky Interscholastic Swimming and Diving Coaches Association named him its Diving Coach of the Year.
Hall was a diver at Riverside High School in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania when he broke his neck on a diving board the week before his his final state meet.
“I haven’t been … coaching around diving for quite a while,” Hall said. “So when the opportunity came up to get back into diving in a coaching capacity, I jumped at it. It’s one of the best things that I’ve decided to do.”
Hall said Northern Kentucky diving coaches welcomed him as if he had grow up in Independence, Edgewood or Taylor Mill.
“… And next year there might be some team shakeups, but I’m never leaving Kenton County, I can tell you that right now,” Hall said.
Ryle takes a hit
The Raiders’ bid for a third straight Combined title (where boys and girls scores are added together) got harder after Friday’s preliminaries.
The 400 freestyle relay quartet of Nash Parsons, Tanner Lovins, Gavin Koenigsknecht and Knopf finished ninth in 3:18.22 and missed the finals by less than a second behind Elizabethtown.
“We’re gonna have to have to overcome about a dozen points that we gave away,” Floyd said.
Floyd couldn’t simultaneously watch the divers warm up and coach the swimmers, which he said was not an excuse for what happened.
“We took too much off the gas,” Floyd said. “We’re too good to make that error.”
The girls finals start with preliminaries at 10 a.m. Saturday, followed by 1-meter diving at 1:30 p.m. and swimming finals at 6:40 p.m.
For complete results, visit khsaa.org (bit.ly/4aKBg8g).