Snohomish does the same in the North competition

By Morris Malakoff

Herald Writer

MARYSVILLE – The Snohomish Panthers girls swim team had an easy time winning the North Sectional of the 4A Northwest District meet, scoring 479 points and outdistancing second-place Oak Harbor by 259 points.

“We may not be at the top like we have been the past few years,” said Panther coach John Pringle, whose teams have won the past three 4A state championships and six of the past seven district titles, with yesterday’s title the fifth in a row. “We really used today to prepare for the state meet, to experiment with different relay team combinations.”

The Panthers will defend their state title beginning Friday at the King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way.

“We hope to be in the top six or seven this year. But we have lots of good young swimmers,” said Pringle, hinting at future powerhouse performances by the Snohomish program.

If the Panthers are not at the top of their game, it certianly was not apparent yesterday in the pool at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.

While the Oak Harbor Wildcats did pick up wins in the 200-yard medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay, the Panthers took second place in each event and captured the 400 freestyle relay.

The Panthers took first place in six of the 12 events. Oak Harbor took five first-place finishes.

Jessie Rima of Marysville-Pilchuck broke the Snohomish and Oak Harbor stranglehold on first-place finishes when she qualified for the state meet with a win in the 100 backstroke.

Snohomish had the maximum of four swimmers occupying all but two of the six starting blocks in three events. Numbers like that may work in favor of Snohomish in defending their state title. The Panthers will send 11 swimmers and three divers to the state meet. It is the divers that may most help the Snohomish cause at Federal Way, particularly if they place, as many schools do not have diving programs and cannot earn those points.

Emily Enders, Taisha Atkins and Anna Millar will all compete from the 1-meter board. Enders, a former gymnast in only her second season of diving, won the district diving title with 279.40 points, well ahead of the 11-diver field.

The most entertaining events of the day were those involving Oak Harbor’s Missy McIntyre and Cascade’s Rachel MacNeill. Both swam state meet qualifying times in the 200 individual medley, with McIntyre edging out MacNeill by .69 seconds. The rematch came in the 100 breaststroke. Despite both again swimming state qualifying times, it was again the Oak Harbor freshman downing the Cascade junior, this time by more than a second.

In the marathon event of the meet, the 500 freestyle, Snohomish’s Kirsten Behla and Oak Harbor’s Brandy Rupert swam stroke-for-stroke through the first 100 yards before a strong and steady swimming Behla began pulling away, finishing almost a pool length ahead of Rupert, winning by just over 14 seconds.