MARYSVILLE
After a season of overcoming injuries and battling the toughest league competition it’s faced in years, the Shorewood boys swim and dive team is ready for the big test.
All three of Shorewood’s relays and six individuals have qualified for the state 4A Swimming and Diving Championships. Preliminaries begin today, Friday, Feb. 16 at noon. The meet continues at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 17.
At the 4A District 1 Swimming and Diving Championships at Marysville-Pilchuck Feb. 10, Shorewood finished third with 375.5 points. That was only a half-point behind second-place Marysville-Pilchuck, which scored 376 points.
“Oh man, that’s a heartbreaker,” Shorewood head coach Scott Kelley said.
Snohomish, the defending state 4A champions, dominated the meet, taking first with 639 points.
Still, “as a team it’s one of the best finishes we’ve had in awhile,” sophomore Tim Tan said.
Tan placed fifth in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1 minute, 51.96 seconds and fifth in the 100 butterfly with a time of 56.40, but earned wild card berths to state in both events.
Junior Max Vincent, who had already qualified for state in the 50 freestyle, finished third at the district meet with a time of 22.96. His fastest time of the season, 22.65, earned him the 10th seed at state.
“My goal this year is top eight (at state),” said Vincent, who finished 11th at state last year in the 50 free.
Junior Matt Gill earned a wild card spot in the 200 individual medley. He placed sixth at districts with a time of 2:08.35.
Senior Ming Qiu nabbed a wild card berth in the 100 backstroke with a time of 58.09.
Junior Chris Lewis, who won his final heat of the 100 breaststroke at districts in 1:05.65, also snagged a wild card spot.
The 200 medley relay team of Qiu, Lewis, Dylan Crooks and Kelley Neubauer, validated its previous state-qualifying times by finishing third with at time of 1:45.02.
Last year, the T-birds’ 200 medley relay got disqualified at districts. This year it almost happened to the 200 freestyle relay, but the T-birds caught a break.
The T-birds false started in the preliminaries and, according to new rules this season, swimmers are automatically disqualified and do not get another chance to restart. However, because of some uncertainty over the rule or over the start, the official decided not to penalize Shorewood, Vincent said.
The T-birds’ squad of Shane Gruger, Neubauer, Tan and Vincent took third in the preliminaries with a season-best time of 1:33.06 that qualified them for state as the eighth seed.
Shorewood’s 400 freestyle relay team of Vincent, Joe Pace, Gruger and Tan came in fourth with a state-qualifying time of 3:24.51.
Gruger, a key part of the success of the relays, missed much of the season recovering from hernia surgery. He came back and picked up where he left off last year, Kelley said.
Shorewood senior diver Spenser Mestel, who qualified for state earlier in the season, finished sixth with 288.25 points.
Mestel said he’ll have the exact same lineup of dives at state and hopes to fare better there than he did at districts.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
