NHS swimmers cut time in Cody

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Lady Dogie Swim team has exploded off the blocks this season, and in their second meet of the year are swimming faster times than they were at the same time in 2019. In addition, they performed well after riding in the bus for six hours on Thursday to get to Cody to compete.
“It really was a good second meet,” exclaimed head coach Doug Scribner. “For the trip, they swam well and were not tired. That’s a good sign because the state meet is in Laramie so it was awesome to see that they could get off the bus after that long trip to Cody and do well. They were excited to be there and excited to swim.”
Hannah Gross added two more events to her state slate, which brings her total to four so far. The senior not only won the 100 Butterfly and the 100 Backstroke, but she did so with ease, and far under 4A qualifying time. She dropped over two and a half seconds in the fly and .19 seconds in the backstroke, and she out-touched the second place finisher by almost five seconds in the former and over eight seconds in the latter. 
“I think that 1:03 is her best butterfly time, and since both are faster than she started last year in either race, that bodes well,” Scribner nodded. “It wasn’t her fastest time in the backstroke, but she’s certainly on track to get there.”
Raeleigh Shipp dropped almost two seconds from her finish last week in the 100 Backstroke. She also swam the 200 Free and finished two seconds faster than she finished last year.
Lydia Anderson swam for the first time this year, and did so on a mission. She finished fourth in the 50 Free with her best time for the start of the season of 29.70, just under two seconds off of 3A qualifying time. 
“Lydia started last year swimming 32 seconds in the 50 Free and 1:24 in the backstroke,” Scribner explained. “As such she is less than seven seconds away from qualifying in the backstroke and she is really starting out strong.”
Becca Henkle took first place in diving, and though her score was down from last week, this was the first time the senior has won the event.
“In the scheme of things Becca probably dove as well as she did last week. However, she added a twist this week which ended up being her weakest dive understandably,” Scribner began. “Her score of 141 was probably pretty conservative, but it was the first time she had won so she was pretty excited about that. It was also really cool because she did beat some veteran divers.”
At the meet, the team had the opportunity to see Worland and Cody, and Scribner noted that Cody gained a couple of pretty good distance swimmers who moved in this year and they may give Gross some more competition in the 200 Free this year.
“Cody has some pretty fast girls, so it will be neat to watch the other girls who were fast anyway step up to that level,” Scribner smiled. “ We probably won’t swim against Cody until the state meet so it’s definitely something to look forward to.”
This week, the team will travel to Worland on Friday for their only competition of the week. Scribner is unsure who they will be competing against, but knows there will be no more than four teams in attendance.