Last chance

It was a fast and furious last chance meet in Gillette Friday for the Newcastle Lady Dogie swim team. Two Lady Dogies were poised to punch their tickets to the state meet — or add to their state slate — in a few different events.

Head coach Doug Scribner noted that his team went into Friday’s competition a little tired and their fatigue showed in no particular swimming qualifying times, however, four swimmers were able to put up personal best times in the 50 Freestyle and the 100 Backstroke.

“Last week we had kids sick or missing practice due to trips, so having the same energy we did at conference the week before was going to be tough,” Scribner said. “It was also a qualifier meet, so it was pretty short and moved pretty quickly without a lot of rest between events.”

Jaydenn Nelson, Shelby Smith and Kathryn Huber each swam personal records in the 50 Freestyle, with Huber achieving the greatest time drop of 2.18 seconds, which is impressive in such a short race. Then Madalyn Francis improved her time in the 100 Backstroke by .25 of
a second.

Hailey Beastrom was looking to add the 100 Freestyle and maybe the 100 Backstroke to her state slate, and Francis was trying to qualify in the 50 Freestyle. Unfortunately, neither of them could get under the mark, though Francis got close, finishing less than a second behind the
qualifying standard.

“Yeah, it was a weird week,” Beastrom said. “One day there were only four girls at practice, so it kind of turned into a recovery week. So the last chance meet wasn’t great.”

Beastrom will be competing in the 50 Freestyle at the state competition where she is seeded fourth, Smith will be competing in the 100 Backstroke and her seeding will depend on which swimmers opt to compete in that race, while Allie Lunstra has a decision to make regarding which races she will choose to compete in given she is qualified in several different events.

“I recently found out that to qualify for Zones, the time is a 26.09 and I have a 26.21,” Beastrom explained. “I’ve been working really hard in practice and I want to swim a 25 this weekend. I just need to focus and do what I have to do to make it to finals, and then see what happens!”

Hopes are also high for a good finish for the 200 Free Relay team, given there are seven schools who have all posted times within three seconds in this event.

“We will be putting our fastest 200 Medley and 200 Free relay teams together this weekend,” Scribner said. “Right now we are right in the middle, and have our best seeding in the two-free relay. We are just three seconds out of second place in that one. We have a really good chance of being in the top six which will be nice for the girls.”

The Lady Dogies will head to the 3A Wyoming State Girls Swimming and Diving Championships this week as action gets under way on Thursday, and will wrap up on Friday, at Cheyenne East High School.