Gross, Henkle show out at Conference meet

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Lady Dogies made a splash at the 3A East Conference meet last Friday and Saturday in Rawlins. Though the team as a whole finished last out of six, their top swimmer blew her competition out of the water.
Hannah Gross was on a mission and it showed. The junior, who is among the top in the state in nearly all of the swimming events, proved that she deserves her accolades as she walked away from the Conference meet holding a new pool record in the 50 Free, a new conference record in the 100 Backstroke, All-Conference honors in the 50 Free and 100 Back, and the title of Athlete of the Year for 3A.
“Hannah had a fantastic meet,” head coach Doug Scribner grinned. “The cool thing about the 100 Back record is that it has been held by Newcastle for a long time. Hannah broke Rachel Henkle’s record and Rachel got hers when she broke Natasha Schlup’s record. Hannah is just .4 of a second off the pool record in this event as well which is currently held by a 4A swimmer from Rock Springs.”
Gross initially broke the 100 Back conference record by about a second in the prelims on Friday, and then she turned it up a notch and was another second faster in finals on Saturday. She now has the goods in the Rawlins pool in both the 50 Free and the 200 Free, which she set the record for in her freshman year.
There are still goals for the junior, however, as she is about .3 of a second off the conference record in the 50 Free.
“In the 50 Free in prelims, Hannah was very fast but had a short finish when she took an extra stroke at the end,” Scribner began. “We talked about that and in finals she finished just right. She was faster in finals, but she could have been even faster still. She led the whole way and was about a half-body length ahead on the turn and finished super strong.”
Becca Henkle also had an outstanding weekend, but hers was off the 1 meter diving board. The junior has been working all year to get qualified for the state meet, and last Saturday, she achieved her goal by scoring the required 240 points from her 11 dives.
“It was so exciting to see Becca qualify because she’s been working so hard toward that and has gotten really close a few times,” Scribner beamed. “She finished Friday in third place, and did what she needed to do on Saturday to get the job done.
Both Henkle and Dakotta Wheeler competed in diving over the two day meet. On Friday, they executed eight of the 11 dives and Henkle finished the day with 183.75 points. That score set her up to simply have to dive consistently on Saturday in order to qualify.
Though Wheeler ended up short of the qualifying mark, Scribner noted that the freshman made great personal strides over the course of the two day competition.
“There were three dives which Dakotta had not hit in practice but had hit in a meet, so we [Scribner and Hannah Cummings] went back and forth about entering her,” Scribner began. “We didn’t want her to DQ because if you fail two dives, that disqualifies you from the event.”
It turned out that entries were due early so the coaches had to make a quick decision so opted to put her in. Wheeler rose to the occasion and hit all 11 of her dives and was excited about that.
“Coach Cummings had her practice the dives in warmups on Friday, and after the event, Hannah got her back up on the board to do it again and I think that built her confidence,” Scribner stated. “I’m excited to see how they each do at the qualifier this week. Now that the qualifying pressure is off Becca, she can just go dive and we’ll see how that turns out and now that Dakotta has all of her dives, we’ll be able to have her work on perfecting them instead of spending all her time learning new ones.”
Though no other individuals qualified for the state meet, the Lady Dogies had someone swimming in every event but the breaststroke and the 200 Medley Relay in finals on Saturday. In order to make it to finals, swimmers had to finish in the top 12 of their event. By advancing five swimmers and two divers, the team was able to rack up 100 points which is 26 over what they scored last year.
The Lady Dogies have one more shot to get more swimmers qualified this Thursday at the Last Chance meet in Gillette.
“Everyone will pick an event to improve upon this week,” Scribner nodded. “Becca and Hannah will be doing their events, and then we will focus on our relays and entering people into individual events that will help prepare them for their leg of the relays at the State meet.”