2024 NIAA 3A State Swimming and Diving Championships

The 2024 NIAA Nevada High School State Swimming and Diving Championships concluded on Saturday with swimming action happening at the Pavilion Center Pool in Las Vegas, NV. The series is split up into three classes: 3A (and under), 4A, and 5A, which did not begin until 2022 following two cancelled state meets in 2020 and 2021 from the COVID-19 pandemic. To qualify for each class’ respective state meet, the top four finishers from each individual/relay event move on from each class’ two regional championships. The 4A finals session concluded on Thursday, with Saturday evening having class 5A finals sound off.

Saturday morning was the class 3A swimming state finals, where the Truckee girls and Boulder City boys successfully defended their 2023 team titles. On the girls side, Truckee dominated by over 50 points while Coral (69) just nipped out Boulder City (66) and Virgin Valley (65) for the runner-up crown. Meanwhile on the boys side, Boulder City wound up sharing the team title with Boulder City, who placed second last year. The Coral boys comfortably came in third.

3A GIRLS TEAM SCORES

1. Truckee, 121
2. Coral, 69
3. Boulder City, 66
4. Virgin Valley, 65
5. North Tahoe, 46

3A BOYS TEAM SCORES

1. Truckee/Boulder City, 112
2. –
3. Coral, 83
4. North Tahoe, 44
5. Virgin Valley, 30

GIRLS FINALS HIGHLIGHTS

Boulder City’s Phoebe McClaren, committed to St. Bonaventure for fall 2024, became a 3-time 3A Nevada HS state champion in both the 200 free and 500 free. She first won the 200 free at 1:54.15, her fastest time to win a state title. Then, she destroyed the 500 free by over 34 seconds to nab the win at 4:53.11, taking down both her best time of 4:54.39 and the 2017 3A state record of 4:54.54. Finishing in second place in both races behind McClaren was Pinecrest Sloan Canyon’s Hailey Imasa, clocking 2:00.65 in the 200 free and 5:27.16 in the 500 free.

Peering at the 1-meter diving boards, Boulder City’s McKenna Morrow had also won her 3rd-straight 3A state title.

Virgin Valley’s Kyra Jensen, a freshman, also won two 3A titles on Saturday as well. She first won the 50 free at 25.73, a tenth ahead of runner-up South Tahoe’s Nicole Whisnant (25.83). Jensen then flipped over to win the 100 back at 1:04.45, ahead of North Tahoe’s Kayden Watts (1:05.11) and Truckee’s Addie Schaller (1:06.09).

Truckee’s Schaller had earlier won the 100 free at 57.06, tenths ahead of teammate Aspen Hall (57.39). Schaller and Hall then accompanied the winning 200 free relay for Truckee (1:46.43), the school’s 3rd-straight title in that relay. Schaller then anchored Truckee’s winning 400 free relay (4:01.41), narrowly holding off Boulder City (4:02.84) and McClaren’s blazing 53.02 anchor split.

Coral’s Jordan Clarke was also a double 3A state champion, defending both of her 2023 state titles. Clarke first won the 200 IM by over 7 seconds at 2:13.04, with Boulder City’s Zoey McClaren taking second at 2:20.60. After hitting 1:08.10 at regionals, Clarke then handily won the 100 breast at 1:08.28.

Another Coral swimmer, Momoka Utusmi, won her third-consecutive 100 fly 3A state title at 59.67. Both Clarke and Utusmi were featured in Coral’s winning 200 medley relay of 1:59.46, powered by Clarke’s 30.68 breast split and Utusmi’s 26.99 fly split. Meanwhile, Truckee’s Reese Hoffmann swam a quick 25.91 freestyle anchor to attempt chasing down Coral. Truckee wound up settling for a close second place finish at 2:00.01.

ALL GIRLS 2024 NIAA 3A SWIMMING CHAMPIONS

• Girls 200 Medley Relay: Coral, 1:59.46
• Girls 200 Free: Phoebe McClaren (Boulder City), 1:54.15
• Girls 200 IM: Jordan Clarke (Coral), 2:13.04
• Girls 50 Free: Kyra Jensen (Virgin Valley), 25.73
• Girls 1-Meter Diving: McKenna Morrow (Boulder City), 225.90 pts
• Girls 100 Fly: Momoka Utusmi (Coral), 59.67
• Girls 100 Free: Addie Schaller (Truckee), 57.06
• Girls 500 Free: Phoebe McClaren (Boulder City), 4:53.11
• Girls 200 Free Relay: Truckee, 1:44.83
• Girls 100 Back: Kyra Jensen (Virgin Valley), 1:04.45
• Girls 100 Breast: Jordan Clarke (Coral), 1:08.28
• Girls 400 Free Relay: Truckee, 4:01.41

BOYS FINALS HIGHLIGHTS

Coral’s Joseph Sirhan won arguably two of the toughest individual high school events, the 200 IM and 500 free. He first won the 200 IM at 1:53.60, upsetting defending champ Truckee’s Asher Kates (1:55.42) while Pinecrest Sloan Canyon’s Jacob Imasa took third (2:00.08). Sirhan then had defended his own 500 free title, for the second time, touching in at 4:41.23, finishing way ahead of Boulder City’s Duncan McClaren (4:49.86) and Pinecrest Sloan Canyon’s Nathaniel Stewart (5:01.69).

While Truckee’s Kates was denied a 200 IM title via Sirhan’s upset win, he was able to defend his 100 back title, winning the event at 52.13 ahead of Pinecrest Sloan Canyon’s Stewart (54.02). Earlier in the 200 free final, Boulder City’s McClaren won with the lone sub-1:50 swim of 1:48.55.

Churchill’s Zachary Koenig also matched Sirhan’s double 3A state wins. In the 100 free, Koenig won at 48.61, narrowly ahead of more sub-49s from Truckee’s Noah Erskine (48.82) and Boulder City’s Troy Higley (48.98). Koenig then crushed the 100 breast at 58.37, with Pinecrest Sloan Canyon’s Imasa taking second at 1:01.48.

Into the 50 free, Boulder City’s Higley defended his 3A title with a 22.07, with Truckee’s Erskine spotted again in second at 22.64. In the same title-defending fashion, Sage Ridge’s Zach Power won the 100 fly at 51.92.

The Truckee boys won two relays, the 200 medley relay (1:41.48) and their third-straight 400 free relay title (3:20.09). Erskine’s 26.17 back lead-off and Kates’ 26.56 breast split powered Truckee’s winning medley relay. In the 400 free relay, Erskine’s 48.83 lead-off and Kates’ 47.49 anchor powered Truckee’s second relay win of the meet.

The 200 free relay 3A title came down to a seven one-hundredths separation from the top two. Coral took out the narrow win at 1:32.01, anchored by Sirhan’s 21.53. Settling for the close second place at 1:32.09 was Boulder City, with Higley anchoring a 21.76.

ALL BOYS 2024 NIAA 3A SWIMMING CHAMPIONS

• Boys 200 Medley Relay: Truckee, 1:41.48
• Boys 200 Free: Duncan McClaren (Boulder City), 1:48.55
• Boys 200 IM: Joseph Sirhan (Coral), 1:53.60
• Boys 50 Free: Troy Higley (Boulder City), 22.07
• Boys 100 Fly: Zach Power (Sage Ridge), 51.92
• Boys 100 Free: Zachary Koenig (Churchill), 48.61
• Boys 500 Free: Joseph Sirhan (Coral), 4:41.23
• Boys 200 Free Relay: Coral, 1:32.01
• Boys 100 Back: Asher Kates (Truckee), 52.13
• Boys 100 Breast: Zachary Koenig (Churchill), 58.37
• Boys 400 Free Relay: Truckee, 3:20.09

3A Boys Swimming State Champs! Congratulations Eagles! #bchs41 #bchsswim pic.twitter.com/Ibi9imToQh

— Boulder City HS (@boulder_hs) May 18, 2024

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RENO (AP) — A conservative activist who embraced unproven election fraud claims has lost an appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court in his bid to oust a top county election official and others.

The high court on Wednesday upheld a lower-court judge’s earlier dismissal of Robert Beadles’ lawsuit, which claimed that Washoe County’s registrar of voters, the county manager and a county commissioner violated the state constitution by failing to respond to his complaints of fraud.

“Taking all the factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing every inference in favor of Beadles, he can prove no set facts that would entitle him to relief as pleaded,” the Supreme Court ruled.

Beadles, who once briefly ran for Congress in California in 2010, has alleged that the election system is rife with “flaws and irregularities” that robbed him of his vote in 2020.

Beadles lost an earlier lawsuit in state court in 2022 that sought heightened observation of Washoe County’s vote-counting process. He has helped lead attempts to recall or otherwise oust numerous county officials since he moved to Reno from California in 2019.

Washoe County, which includes Reno-Sparks and the north shore of Lake Tahoe along the California line, is considered a swing county in the Western battleground state of Nevada. Registered voters are divided roughly in equal thirds among Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisans.

The Supreme Court’s ruling said Beadles misapplied a section of the Nevada Constitution guaranteeing the right to assemble and petition the Legislature in his most recent lawsuit, which sought the removal of Jamie Rodriguez, then-Washoe County registrar of voters; Eric Brown, county manager; and Alexis Hill, county commission chairwoman.

“There are no set of facts that could prove a violation of that constitutional right based on respondents’ failure to respond directly to Beadles’ allegations,” Chief Justice Lidia Stiglich wrote in the five-page ruling.

The ruling said state law permits a voter to file a complaint with the secretary of state’s office about election practices, but “these laws do not establish that respondents had a duty to respond to Beadles’ allegations.”

At Bella’s Hacienda Ranch, a brothel on the outskirts of the rural Nevada truckstop town of Wells, a half-priced special for adult male virgins this May has gone off with a bang.

What may seem like a publicity stunt has compassion behind it. May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the US, and the brothel’s 74-year-old namesake owner and operator, Madam Bella Cummins, wants to raise awareness of what she describes as a “virginity epidemic”. She blames digital platforms supplanting young people’s in-person, “IRL” experiences, leading to stunted social development. Brothels, she argues, offer a safe space to work through resulting feelings of anxiety, shame and isolation.

Most of the courtesan’s clients, to use the industry parlance, live in the region, yet increasingly men travel from around the country and the world, seeking out her business for “help”, as they often word it. To receive the discount, men must provide a letter from a mental health professional acknowledging their claim, which Cummins hopes encourages some adult virgins to seek therapy when they otherwise wouldn’t.

So far, the promotion has proved a hit. In a typical week, at least three adult virgins walk through the door, but according to Cummins, reservations from virgin clientele have increased this month by tenfold.

Clearly these services are meeting a growing demand. The virgin special also highlights the underappreciated role sex workers play to help with emotional, as well as physical, needs. Staff at Bella’s Hacienda and other Nevada brothels say many clients are seeking a judgment-free zone that offers sexual healing as a professional service.

Cummins notes that sensual touch releases hormones in the brain that allow us to feel “fully functional” as human beings. When those chemicals remain suppressed, the madam observes, people go to “very dark places”, such as internalising feelings of severe inadequacy and distress, or turning to unhealthy sexual behaviour.

“The only reason we are in these bodies is the touch, and so that we can have sexual encounters, even if it’s just a one-night stand,” says Cummins.

“I’d really like to bring awareness to this issue,” she adds. “There is a safe, healthy way to solve the situation.

Growing anxiety and social isolation

There is evidence that adult virginity and sexual inexperience are on the rise in the US, Canada and other western countries, according to Marie-Aude Boislard, director of the Canada Research Chair in developmental sexology. Approximately 15% of individuals born in the 1990s are virgins in their early 20s, the highest rate of sexual inactivity since 1985. Many report “difficult emotions” and interpersonal struggles due to social stigma, the dearth of visibility of sexual inexperience in adulthood and a lack of intimacy.

Cummins has been in sex work for 38 years and is now the longest-serving madam in Nevada’s legal brothel industry. She’s seen her virgin clientele reflect shifting societal moods and norms.

She recalls how in the 1980s, it was common for long-haul truckers to introduce their adult virgin sons to brothel services. Dad would take the young man on the road during the summer after he finished high school, accompany him through the potentially awkward process of choosing a woman in a line-up, then enjoy a drink at the bar while his son got that first sexual experience under his belt.

Beginning in the 1990s, more often it was mothers who brought their inexperienced offspring to the “cathouse”, and not just for the young man to lose his virginity, but so that he might gain confidence interacting with a woman, receive guidance on pleasuring a woman and learn about the sensual side of sexual intimacy.

These days, Cummins said, virgins tend to show up alone. Some act shy about it, but most openly share their status, if only to apologise for their perceived haplessness.

“When we’ve never done something, the fear associated with doing it wrong – being inept or inadequate – it takes us over,” she mused. “They say, ‘Look I really want to learn what I’m supposed to do here.’ Others say: ‘I’m feeling distress about something my hormones are pulling me toward.’ Or ‘What am I supposed to do to get over these feelings of inadequacy?’”

Located in north-eastern Nevada, Bella’s Hacienda Ranch is about an hour’s drive from Idaho and Utah, two states with highly religious populations that Cummins describes as the most sexually repressed in the country.

“They’re told, ‘You can keep this down. Don’t feel that,’” she says, referring to the abstinence culture in faith-based communities. “But how do you deny what God put in a young body – which is that desire?”

The issue goes beyond their proximity to Mormon country, however. The adult virgins visiting Nevada brothels also bemoan their screen-based social lives, as well as permanent shifts to online learning or remote work.

A virgin client of Bella’s Hacienda Ranch in his early 20s, a jiujitsu fighter from Salt Lake City, said social anxiety affects both men and women in his community.

“One thing I notice going to bars lately is that women are so used to dating apps and social media, when I approach a woman in person, they get flustered,” said the client, who asked to have his name withheld for privacy reasons. “Nobody knows how to interact with each other any more.”

‘The intimacy they’re missing’

For some people, brothels are a place to let go of old hangups in a supportive setting.

A 22-year-old tall, athletic cowboy from Utah who requested to use the pseudonym Barry went to Bella’s Hacienda Ranch to lose his virginity after ending a long-term relationship.

He grew up in a religious family but had only remained celibate out of respect for his longtime girlfriend’s abstinence beliefs. Recently, though, Barry learned that she was sleeping with other people, and they broke up.

“I felt kind of betrayed, and like I had waited for no reason,” he said. “So I decided to just, you know, go get laid.”

Losing his virginity at a brothel appealed to Barry because he didn’t want to get involved emotionally with anyone, yet still has a “very high” sex drive. Something transactional with a skilled partner and no expectations or stipulations regarding future contact seemed perfect.

Barry hired a blond, blue-eyed courtesan named Lila. “I just want vanilla sex,” he told her. “No BDSM, nothing kinky.”

Reflecting on the experience afterward, Barry said: “I would honestly recommend it more than just going to a bar and hooking up with a stranger. I probably didn’t go try to hook up with a random girl in my area for fear of being judged. Being able to be in a place where I could express myself and learn things privately was good.”

Often, adult virgins prefer to book appointments with the older courtesans at Bella’s Hacienda, trusting that the maturity, wisdom and compassion that come with age place them in good hands.

The story is much the same on the opposite side of the state, at a brothel closer to Sin City than to Mormon country. Cameron Sloane, a 43-year-old courtesan at Sheri’s Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada, identifies as “Your favorite MILF” on X. She receives many requests from virgin men in their early 20s. They are more intimidated by women their own age, but the “hot mom” fantasy is also part of the dynamic, Sloane says.

The primary skill she brings to these appointments is patience. She mentioned video games, and gaming culture, as another platform through which young men establish online relationships without face-to-face interaction, leaving them uncomfortable making eye contact or communicating what they want in a sexual encounter.

Recently, a young man wore sunglasses inside the brothel to avoid eye contact. Sometimes, a virgin client will shake when Sloane takes his hand to walk him to her room or look down when she places his palm on her thigh as they negotiate her price.

Sloane always feels out the client’s goals and interests, which can range from a quickie to get it over with and say he’d “done it” to a full-on learning session with guidance and feedback. Either way, she starts by letting them touch her and by helping them feel comfortable being touched.

Many virgins have a hard time staying present in their bodies, especially those who are addicted to pornography, Sloane says. Distorted thoughts of what they think sex is supposed to be like cause them to feel insecure or distracted. Sloane recalls a client who came to terms with his porn addiction during their session after he failed to climax through her sensual approach. He acknowledged that he had a problem and was going to seek help.

“We’re more like therapists than anything, and not just for virgins,” she says. “We have people who come in who’ve lost their wives recently and just need somebody to talk to and cuddle with or be close to. It’s more about companionship. I think that’s the most rewarding part of it – when you give someone the intimacy they’re missing.”

Barry, the Salt Lake City cowboy, believes that brothels can be a good place to get over sexual jitters, with added mental health benefits to boot.

“If you wanted to learn how to golf, you wouldn’t just show up to a golf course. If you did, you might embarrass yourself,” he says, reaching for a sports analogy. “So maybe if you’re a virgin and you want to have sex for the first time without embarrassing yourself – if you feel that might happen – a brothel might be a good place to start to get over the first-time nerves.”

The young man says he has done a lot of therapy and agrees that there’s an emotional angle, too: “I was able to let some stuff go, for sure.”