Swimmers finish season strong

The Newcastle High School swim team wrapped up their season last weekend in Laramie at the 3A State Swim Meet. Four individual swimmers and three relay teams dove in on Friday at the prelims, and head coach Doug Scribner was pleased with how his team performed in that pivotal round.

“We had very good prelim swims all around. The team has consistently been dropping times for the last three weeks and I was confident they would drop time for prelims,” Scribner began. “The hope is always that the time drop will be enough to get them into the top 12, and we were able to do that in two events.”

Gabe Hoover, Logan Olson and Harrison Gross each qualified in enough events to fill their state slates by competing in two individual races, while Sam Cunningham punched his ticket in one event. 

“Our seed times were pretty good going into prelims, with Gabe and Harrison seeded in the top 12 in two events,” Scribner said. “All the other swims were within reach if they could drop enough time.”

Hoover and Harrison were both seeded in the top 12, so just had to hold their time in order to advance to finals in the 100 Backstroke and 500 Freestyle races, respectively. 

Gross not only held his time, but dropped .68 of a second off his previous best time to finish eighth in the prelims, then dropped to ninth in the finals of the 500. 

Hoover held his spot in the prelims of the 100 Back, clinching 12th place, then repeated his finish in finals on Saturday.

Heading into the meet, Scribner knew that the 200 Medley relay would be a tough one to get into finals, and despite dropping eight seconds off their time, the team of John Sandrini, Isaiah Anderson, Nate Strickland and Lucas Scribner just missed out on advancing to finals.

“Each of the guys who swam the medley relay had [personal records] in the race,” Scribner said. “Even though they each had a great swim, it just wasn’t fast enough to get into the top 12.”

The 200 Freestyle and 400 Freestyle Relays were a different story, however. The 200 Freestyle relay team just had to hold their time to make the top 12, and the 400 Freestyle team went in seeded 10th.

“The highlight of the meet would be the two and four free relays,” Scribner said. “The boys were confident that they could be faster in those two relays, so we decided to make a couple changes to see what they could do.”

Scribner decided to switch Gross out of the 200 Freestyle relay for finals in order to allow him to focus on the 500 Freestyle open, which took place right before the relay. By doing so, the team of Cunningham, Strickland, Anderson and Olson had enough rest to shave three seconds off their previous best time to move up one place from prelims to finals and grab the 11th spot with a time of 1:44.86.

“We have been a 1:44 three times in the last five years, which are three of the fastest relays we have ever had,” Scribner said. 

The 400 Freestyle relay team of Cunningham, Gross, Hoover and Olson had a strong race at the conference meet, so Scribner opted to keep that team together and they went into the state meet seeded in 10th place. Despite being admittedly tired by the time the race began on Friday, the squad swam hard to maintain that 10th spot.

In the finals on Saturday, the team dropped seven seconds from their time on Friday to once again finish 10th.

“We had a good time drop and almost moved up into ninth place,” Scribner said. “This is a great time for this relay and 3:47 is the fastest 400 Free time we’ve had in the last 20 years. We do not graduate any swimmers on this relay, which makes the potential for even faster times next year.”

Gross, Hoover, Cunningham and Olson each had over two-second time drops in their other individual events, but it just wasn’t enough to advance them from prelims to the finals. Gross finished 19th in the 200 Freestyle, Hoover was 16th in the 200 IM while Cunningham finished 29th in the same race. Olson also had a 16th place finish in the 100 Freestyle.

“Harrison’s race in the 200 Free was tight with just 1.6 seconds separating him from 12th place,” Scribner said. “Logan’s race was also close with him being just one second away from the top 12.”

In reflecting on the season, Scribner came away with high hopes for the future of Dogie swimming. 

“This was a great season for the boys team and the four freshmen added a lot of depth to the team, which created a great atmosphere where the whole team worked hard in practice to achieve their meet goals,” he said. “I enjoyed watching them develop their potential and come away from each meet a smarter competitor. Their hard work paid off in the number of qualifying swims we had this year for state.”

“I love Logan’s attitude, which I feel fits this team this year,” he continued. “He came up to talk to me after the 24.5 he swam in the 200 Free relay, which is almost a two-second drop from his previous swim and is what moved us into 11th, and he said ‘I think I could be faster.’”

The Dogies will only graduate Strickland from the team this year, and will fill his vacancy with one incoming freshman for next season.