Anderson shows out at state swim meet

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
Lydia Anderson was one of two Lady Dogies who qualified for the 3A Wyoming State Swim Meet in an individual event, and the junior put up a stellar performance in the culminating meet on Thursday and Friday in Gillette to finish among the top six and top eight in both of her races.
“Lydia did really well, and had a great meet,” head coach Doug Scribner said. “She had PRs in both of her events and just really gave it everything she had, so that was fun to watch.”
Anderson competed in both the 50 Freestyle and the 100 Free. In the 50, she went into the prelims seeded sixth, so she just needed to hold her spot to advance to finals. The event was incredibly fast, and Anderson had a goal for herself of finishing in 25 seconds. In prelims on Thursday, she was in the lane next to the second fastest swimmer in her heat, which Scribner believed would bode well for her making finals.
“Lydia was racing her really well,” he explained. “But there was a swimmer from Kemmerer in the outside lane who ended up winning the heat.”
That scenario bumped Anderson down to seventh place, and though she didn’t quite get down to her goal time. She did take off a little to finish with a personal record of 26.76. In the finals on Saturday, she took another .51 seconds off her time to finish in 26.32, but even with that improvement, ended up in eighth place. 
Anderson was able to claim a spot on the podium in the 100 Free, however, and did so by swimming the race of her career. Anderson was seeded 19th going into the meet, and ended the weekend by placing. She took four seconds off her best time in her sixth-place finish in the preliminaries, then held her place to finish sixth in finals as well.
“Lydia really did have an amazing swim,” Scribner said. “She was in with a 1:01 so was in one of the first heats. Everyone in her heat was also on about that same seed time, so her challenge was to rely on herself if she wanted to advance.” 
Scribner spoke with Anderson and let her know that if she wanted to get under a minute with a hope to break into finals, she was going to have to go out and race herself knowing she’d have no one to push her.
“She broke out ahead of everyone and by the last 25 yards, she was over a body length ahead of everyone,” said Scribner. “She won her heat by a substantial margin because everyone else swam the times they came in with, and she was so excited to see her time of 58 seconds when she finished.”
“What was really cool, is that it wasn’t until the third or fourth heat until anyone was faster, so she held the number one spot for a while,” he continued.
In the finals on Friday, Anderson wasn’t able to repeat her PR from prelims, but was still under a minute in her sixth-place finish.
The 400 Free Relay team of Raeleigh Shipp, Rebekah Olson, Hailey Beastrom and Anderson went in and did what Scribner anticipated by finishing 12th, thus securing a finals berth. However, getting that 12th place spot in the prelims did not come without some drama.
“Going in, we were seeded 12th so we just had to hold our spot to get to swim at finals,” Scribner stated. “We ended up adding four seconds to our fastest time, swimming a 4:36, but we were able to stay just ahead of Riverton who finished just one second behind us.”
Newcastle was in the second heat while Riverton was in the last, so the two teams didn’t compete against each other making it all that much more intense as all watched that final heat play out, and the Lady Dogies breathed a sigh of relief to see their time hold up.
“We were nervous going into prelims, and were swimming, maybe a little tired by the time the 400 came up, so that contributed to being slower than our seed time by four seconds,” Scribner said. “But, everyone was fresh for the race on Friday due to everyone but Lydia having no other races that day.”
As such, the team dropped four seconds off their previous best time to finish with a team best of 4:28.95 which is also eight seconds faster than their Thursday performance. Shipp swam a PR of 1:02 in the lead-off leg, and since that one counts for an individual time as well, that will stand as her personal best.
Olson was faster and Beastrom had her best time as well with a 1:09. Anderson anchored the relay and was close to her best with a 1:01. 
“The girls all swam really well and their finish was almost enough to beat Worland,” he said. “If we had had a little bit longer, we would have beat them.”
As a team, the Lady Dogies finished 12th ahead of Riverton, which Scribner admitted was a surprise to him.
“I didn’t expect us to beat them overall as a team, and we ended up doing that by three points,” he said. “We were watching Riverton in the finals of the 200 Free relay. If they would have switched places with another team, they would have beat us, but they didn’t, so that was cool.” 
Reflecting on the season overall, Scribner was very pleased to see the vast improvement his team demonstrated. 
“Ruth [Rose] improved 50 seconds in the breaststroke, and Lilly [Ralls] ended up with the title of most improved because over five events, she improved 95 seconds,” Scribner nodded. “We had big improvements from everyone and we will have everyone coming back next season. We’ve already started to talk about the goals the girls have for next year, and what they need to do to get there.”