FEDERAL WAY
Edmonds-Woodway’s Ali Abadi started out fast at the Class 4A state boys swimming and diving championships.
The Warrior sophomore dropped a significant amount of time from both his seed times in the preliminary heats of the 200-yard individual medley and the 100 butterfly. Abadi advanced to the finals of both events, where his times didn’t quite match up to his prelim heats.
Abadi still came home with a pair of eighth-place medals Feb. 16 at the King County Aquatic Center.
“It was my first time at state,” said Abadi, who also swims for the Stingray Swim Club. “I was pretty excited. … I’m not fully rested for this because I have my (club) championships coming up in two weeks, but I still did really well. I’m happy.”
Abadi’s seed time in the 200 individual medley was 2 minutes, 5.26 seconds. In Friday’s prelims, he finished in 2:02.47.
“I was surprised for the 200 IM,” said Abadi, who admitted he wasn’t quite expecting that steep of a drop in time.
In the finals, Abadi clocked in with a 2:02.51.
Abadi came in with a time of 55.55 in the 100 butterfly and finished in 53.94 in the prelims. He went 54.63 in the finals.
“For the fly I was expecting to get into (the finals), but I knew it would take a lot of effort,” Abadi said.
“(Prelims) was really good and (finals) wasn’t his best, but he did really well in both events,” Edmonds-Woodway coach Kate Trettevik said. “Our goal was pretty much to try to pace in the IM with the other people, so he could save his energy for the butterfly.”
Abadi added that he came close to achieving his goals in terms of the times he wanted to go in both events.
Though he has been at the King County Aquatic Center before, Abadi had never participated in a high school state championship.
“It was really exciting to see how the crowd was into every race,” Abadi said. “I liked how we walked out (for the finals). That was my first time.”
The pressure of the finals also was new to Abadi. He’s looking forward to next year when he’ll have more experience of preparing for the finals.
“I didn’t do that good in finals, but hopefully, I’ll do better next year,” Abadi said.
Abadi will be competing in the 200 butterfly, 400 freestyle and 200 backstroke at the upcoming junior sectionals. He tends to be more of a distance swimmer.
“I train for longer distances,” Abadi said. “But I did high school just to get better at sprinting.”
Abadi did swim the 500 freestyle during the high school season, but his times in the individual medley and butterfly were a little faster, Trettevik said.
“I know he really likes the butterfly, so that’s why we did that,” she added. “He’s very well-rounded. He was pretty close to getting a state time (in the backstroke) the two times he swam it.”
Teammate Nate Stoll advanced to the consolation finals of the 50 freestyle. He finished in a tie for 15th place with a time of 22.95. His prelim time was 22.83 and his seed time was 22.74.
“He kept his time really close to what he came in with, so that was really good,” Trettevik said.
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