Putting together the heat sheets for Thursday's dual meet against Heritage almost was like a chess game for the Regis Jesuit coaching staff.

With so many strong swimmers and three meets on the schedule this week, the coaching staff wanted the swimmers to try new events, while also figuring out a strategy to earn enough points to win.

And with senior Alyssa Swanson in place as the Raiders' strongest performer, Regis was able to maneuver itself to a 102-84 win against the Eagles at Heritage High School.

"To have a hard meet like that really tests your ability how you can swim when you're tired," said Swanson, who earned four victories. "This was really an intense meet. And we need to keep up fighting and keep up the cheering because this was definitely the loudest meet I've been to."

Heritage jumped to an early lead during the first half of the meet, led by Shelly Patton's individual wins in the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly and Nicole Fazio's win in the 1-meter diving competition.

Along with Swanson, Regis' other swimmers fought hard to earn crucial points. Swanson was a part of the victorious 200 medley relay before winning the 50-freestyle and 100-freestyle events, and she pushed Regis ahead by anchoring the 200 freestyle relay.

"When you're down going into diving (the meet's fifth event), I know that everyone was really nervous," said Swanson, whose specialty is the 500 freestyle. "We were thinking that 'We've got to go for this,' and everyone knows that they had to step up and swim fast."

Regis held an eight-point lead heading in to the final event, the 400 freestyle relay, and the Raiders battled to claim the top two spots.

"It was exciting and it was good for us to see where we are at this point of the season," said Swanson, who will swim for Dennison University next year. "It gives us a little bit of confidence to know we can keep fighting like that."

Heritage coach Tom Byorick said he thought his team had a good shot to win the meet, so the loss was disappointing.

"We had to approach this meet where we had to put our best foot forward," Byorick said. "But Regis is a very deep and a very talented team and they swam great. Unfortunately for us, they seemed to catch fire a little bit more toward the end than we did. I think our girls were working pretty hard, but there was a period there where we were a little bit flat and they were kind of picking things up.

"You don't usually see a lot of momentum in swimming, but I thought they started swimming much better than they were earlier in the meet, so all the credit goes to them."

Regis Jesuit 102, Heritage 84

200 medley relay - 1, Regis Jesuit (Vanessa Pollitt, Lauren Stoeckle, Alex Todd, Alyssa Swanson), 1:50.08. 200 freestyle - 1, Karie Eitel, Heritage, 2:03.77. 200 individual medley - 1, Shelly Patton, Heritage, 2:14.17. 50 freestyle - 1, Alyssa Swanson, Regis Jesuit, 25.04. Diving - 1, Nicole Fazio, Heritage, 183.05. 100 butterfly - 1, Shelly Patton, Heritage, 1:00.30. 100 freestyle - 1, Alyssa Swanson, Regis Jesuit, 54.29 . 500 freestyle - 1, Lauren Stoeckle, Regis Jesuit, 5:27.53. 200 freestyle relay - 1, Regis Jesuit (Hillary Thomas, Taylor DeBever, Casey Clearwater, Alyssa Swanson), 1:41.81. 100 backstroke - 1, Julie Widmann, Heritage, 1:01.06. 100 breaststroke - 1, Vanessa Pollitt, Regis Jesuit, 1:11.88. 400 freestyle relay - 1, Regis Jesuit (Taylor DeBever, Vanessa Pollitt, Alex Todd, Hillary Thomas), 3:43.41.