Another Dogie qualifies

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
The Dogie swimmers continue to churn up the water by not only qualifying a new person for the fast approaching state meet, but also a total of four new individual events were added to the collective state slate over the weekend as they competed in the Gillette Pre-Invitational on Friday and their invitational meet on Saturday. 
Travis Scribner punched his ticket to the culminating event on the first day out with his 1:13.38 finish in the 100 Breaststroke. 
“This is the same event that Travis qualified in last year, and his time is almost as fast as he swam at the state meet last year — so it’s almost a lifetime PR for him,” began head coach Doug Scribner. “I told Travis he just needed to race the guy next to him and he would be fine. He was nervous, but he went out and did just that so he qualified.”
Meanwhile, Ramsey Gross added two more events to his options for the state meet as he qualified in both the 200 Freestyle and the 100 Free on Friday. Gross now has the option to compete in those two events as well as the 50 Free, 100 Backstroke and 200 IM.
“This was Ramsey’s first time swimming the 100 Free this year and though his time wasn’t his PR, it was a great race for him,” Scribner reported. “He doesn’t really like the 200 Free, but he really did surprise himself at how fast he could go. I had to put in a time for him
so I put in 2:08. He didn’t think he could go that fast, but he ended up at a 2:09, so that
was fun. He got in and raced the guy next to
him and ended up beating him, so he just swam very competitively.” 
Finally, Zade Orsborn got under the mark in the 100 Breaststroke on Saturday with a personal best time of 1:15.44 to add that race to his 200 IM and 100 Butterfly options at state.
Though no other newbies guaranteed an individual swim for themselves in the final meet of the season, there were several PRs put up by the team in the pool that will be the venue for the culminating event. 
In addition to Gross’ finish in the 200 Free, the other notable swims on Friday came from Samuel Scribner in the 100 Free and the 100 Breaststroke. He had not swam either of those so far this season and ended up going a 1:01 in the 100 Free, which is a personal best for him, and also swam a PR in the breaststroke dropping just over 4 seconds in that race. 
“The last time he swam it was against Zade in Douglas where he kept up with him for the first 75 then came off the turn a little slow for the last 25,” Scribner began. “Though he and Travis didn’t swim against each other in the same heat, they both were in lane 10 in consecutive heats. 
Travis told him that since they were both swimming in lane 10, one of them had to qualify. That was kind of neat that Samuel got a PR and Travis qualified.”
On Friday, Scribner put his best 200 Free Relay team of Robert Humes, Nate Strickland, Orsborn and Gross in to see how they would stack up. Their time of 1:45 was a second faster than the team’s state time last year. 
On Saturday he put the best medley relay team of Gross, Travis Scribner, Orsborn and Logan Olson together and went 2:03, which is also the best time so far this season. Scribner thinks it will be totally possible to go under 2:02, which is what they will need to get to finals at state.
“Saturday, I challenged the guys to focus on the race and not on being tired from Friday,” he stated. “They had another good day, which is great because they are going to have to do two days in a row for both conference and state, so it’s good practice.”
This week is the conference meet in Douglas, with prelims on Friday beginning at 1 p.m. with diving, and finals on Saturday starting at 10 a.m. with the regular meet format of starting off with relays. Then the Last Chance Meet is next week, so the remaining Dogies have two more weekends to get under the mark.
“Logan is pretty close in the backstroke, and Samuel feels like he can cut the 3 seconds he needs in the 100 Free and has the potential in the backstroke because he just needs to cut a little over 2 seconds there,” Scribner determined. “Nate also has a shot in the 100 Free. He didn’t have his best weekend in Gillette, which I think bummed him out, but he is working hard and doing well in practice, so he still has a couple of weeks to try to get under the time.”