a dream dashed by 1 second

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
It was the last chance for two Lady Dogies to get under the 3A state qualifying time in their events in order to be eligible to compete in an individual event at this week’s state meet in Laramie. 
Raeleigh Shipp has been steadily dropping time in the 100 Free, drawing ever nearer the 1:04 time required to advance to the culminating event of the year. Last Thursday in Gillette, she cut two seconds off the personal best time she put up at the Conference meet, but still found herself just one second shy of the magic number.
“Raeleigh was really excited and went out and had a great swim,” exclaimed head coach Doug Scribner. “In her heat she was seeded last and she finished first and second overall. She has dropped almost 15 seconds since she started working on her freestyle earlier this year.”
Lydia Anderson was also hoping to add the 50 Free to her state slate, and had less than a second to shave off her best time in order to make it happen. Unfortunately, she too found herself just out of the qualifying time of the 28 seconds required to secure herself a spot in Laramie in that event.
“Lydia was still just a little short again this week,” Scribner began. “We just didn’t find the right combination of things to get her under the mark. I think the anticipation of qualifying and getting it done in the 100 Free may have taken some of the urgency out of the 50 for her.”
Anderson will be competing in the 100 Free at the state meet and both swimmers will also have the opportunity to swim in relay events at the culminating meet, and given both are young swimmers, Scribner believes they will be poised to get under the mark next season.
Hannah Gross continued her winning ways and took first in both the 50 Free and the 100 Backstroke, and though the 50 is not on her radar for Laramie, she chose to swim that to give herself a break from swimming the 200 for the weekend.
“Hannah is getting excited for both the 200 Free and the 100 Back this weekend,” Scribner grinned. “Her backstroke has really started to come together in the last month so I’m excited to see how she will do in that race this weekend.”
Rebekah Olson also had a good day in Gillette as she dropped more time in the 100 Butterfly which is her stroke of choice. According to Scribner, she had her most solid swim of the season in terms of technique, however, she was unable to put up a 3A qualifying time in the race.
The Lady Dogies have three members of the team who will be competing in individual events in Laramie this Friday and Saturday. Gross will be going up against some very good talent in the 200 Free and the 100 Backstroke, Anderson will see what she can do against the competition in the 100 Free and Becca Henkle will take her shot at diving. 
Henkle finished third at the Conference meet last week with a personal high score of 305, so is looking to bring home some hardware at state, while Gross is excited to challenge Joyce from Cody who put up an impressive time of 1:53 in the 200 Free at the Conference meet in Worland last week. 
Preliminary events will kick off this Friday at 4 p.m. with finals scheduled to begin at 10 on Saturday morning. Unlike other culminating events this fall, the state swim meet is formatted in the usual way aside from social distancing and PPE requirements for participants. Spectators are also limited and ticket allotments are based on the number of qualifiers from each team.