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Sugar House Journal

Rams swim solid times at state meet

Feb 27, 2019 16h54 ● By Josh Mc Fadden

Olivia White swims the 100-yard backstroke at the 5A state meet in Provo. (Photo courtesy Cindy Nordstrom)

By Josh McFadden | [email protected]

Unlike most high school sports, the state championships of swimming involve just about every team in a given classification—all at the same time and place.

The Class 5A state meet took place at Brigham Young University. The event was so big that it was held over two days, Feb. 8 and 9. Teams from Class 6A joined 5A schools at the venue. 

Among 20 other 5A participants, the Highland girls finished in 14th place, while the boys wound up in the 11th spot. The girls tallied 62 points, and the boys accumulated 79, just eight away from cracking the top 10. It’s the same spot the girls attained last season; the boys improved one slot, going up from 12th a year ago. 

The girls 200-yard medley relay team placed ninth in the event, swimming the race in 1:57.16. Senior Arden Tesch, senior Katarina Schilling, senior Kara Ngu and junior Annie Murdock teamed up to beat out seven other opponents. In the 400 freestyle relay, Murdock combined efforts with freshman Olivia Dunn, freshman Kate Murdock and Tesch to finish 12th with a time of 3:57.72.

Individually, Tesch had an excellent showing in the 200 free. She placed fourth with a time of 1:58.18, four seconds behind the champion and earned the Rams 15 points. She was also fifth in the 500 free, swimming the long race in 5:16.45 and getting 14 points for her team. She was just two seconds behind the fourth-place swimmer and six seconds ahead of the fifth-place finisher. 

In the 100 breaststroke, Schilling qualified for the finals and picked up three points by finishing 14th with a time of 1:13.10. 

The boys also placed ninth in the 200 medley relay. Junior Michael Wallis, senior Dylan Davis, junior Nicholas Pembroke and junior Seth Hatch swam the relay in 1:43.57, just 0.92 seconds behind the team in front of them. The Rams were also ninth in the 400 free relay on the boys’ side. Davis led off, followed by Pembroke, Wallis and junior Zak Peterson. Together, they finished the race in 3:24.04 and got 18 points for Highland.

Peterson placed 10th in the 200 free, swimming it in 1:49.29, less than a second behind the ninth-place competitor. He was also ninth in the 500 free with a time of 5:04.80, shaving a second off his preliminary time. 

Meanwhile, Wallis produced the top boys individual performance by swimming the challenging 100 butterfly in 53.70 seconds, good enough for fourth place and 15 points.