Swimmers finish strong

The Lady Dogie swim team finished their season strong last week at the 3A State Swim Meet at Cheyenne East High School. Three individual swimmers competed in four different events, and all three relay teams were on deck to vie for a spot in the finals. Head coach Doug Scribner was excited to see what his team could accomplish given all of the gains they had made over the course of
the season.

“We made it to finals in all three of the relays, Allie [Lunstra] made it in both of her events and was top six in the 200 Free. Hailey [Beastrom] was top six in the 50 Free while Shelby [Smith] just missed finals in the backstroke by one second,” Scribner summarized. “As a team we scored 53 points and were just one point behind Pinedale, so that was great!”

As a senior, this was Beastrom’s last chance to compete for hardware in the 50 Freestyle. Scribner noted that she was nervous going into prelims on Thursday and swam a little tight. However, Beastrom was able to secure a podium berth by finishing fifth.

In order to try to put her in the best situation for finals of the 50 Freestyle on Friday, Scribner changed some things by putting her in the last leg of the 200 Medley Relay, which
is the freestyle leg.

“We were hoping by letting her swim the last leg instead of the breaststroke, she would be a little more relaxed for the open 50,” Scribner explained. “It did seem to work because she was a little more relaxed, so that was good.”

The finals was a fast race with the top swimmer from Lander finishing in 24.93 seconds. The second person to the wall (also from Lander) touched at 25.74, then third through sixth place all ended with times in the 26-second range. Beastrom
was again fifth with a time of 26.66 seconds.

“I was pretty happy with how things went. It was a fast race and it was a lot of fun,” Beastrom said, smiling. “Going into the finals, it was kind of intimidating swimming against both Lander girls and a fast girl from Cody. I kept up with them pretty well, but it came down to the finish — which they did better than me.”

Lunstra had prequalified for the state meet in several events, and the freshman ultimately opted to compete in the 200 Freestyle and the 100 Butterfly. In the 200 Free, Lunstra went in ranked 20th, but she finished sixth in the prelims with a time of 2:12.05, a 4 ½ second improvement from her previous best time.

In the finals, the freshman cranked things up even more to cut two more seconds off that time for another PR, and in doing so improved her finish to fifth in an exciting finish where Lunstra beat the swimmer who finished sixth by two one-hundredths of a second.

“After Allie got out of the water in the prelims, she knew she could take the race out faster, ” Scribner said. “She cut a second off her first 50 in finals and moved up a place.”

“It was so good to see Allie swim that well, because she put in so much work throughout the season,” Beastrom added. “It was great to see her get on
the podium!”

In the 100 Butterfly, Lunstra was ranked second to last of the qualifiers, but she swam another PR, this time cutting 7.2 seconds off her previous best time in prelims, then took another .74 seconds off in the finals for another PR and she finished eighth place in each race.

“She only swam it once or twice during the season, but after she swam the fly on
the medley relay at conference and felt good about it, she decided to race it at state,” Scribner said.

In both the prelims and the finals, seventh and eighth place came down to the last stroke of the race. As Scribner described, Lunstra took an extra stroke, which the swimmer from Douglas who beat her did not, allowing her to finish ahead of her by .19 in the prelims and .33 in the finals.

Though Smith didn’t make it into the top 12 in the 100 Backstroke, the freshman swam a PR by 1.65 in the event and was just one second away from a finals berth.

“Shelby had a great time drop and was so close to getting into finals,” Scribner said.

The Lady Dogies were looking forward to competing in the 200 Freestyle Relay all season. Seven teams went into the state meet neck-and-neck, so everyone knew it was going to be a fight to see who would stand on the podium on Friday.

The team of Beastrom, Madalyn Francis, Ruth Rose and Lunstra were out-touched by three-hundredths of a second by the team from Douglas in the prelims to finish seventh, putting them out of the running for placing in finals.

In finals on Friday, Francis led things off as the Lady Dogies were determined to maintain their seventh place overall and to win the B-Finals heat.

“It was kind of a bummer to be that close to top six and not make it, but we knew we had to bring it on Friday to make sure we held on to seventh,” Beastrom said. “I didn’t want to go first on Friday because I felt like if I knew where we were at, I could push a little harder. So Madalyn led off and I swam the third leg (with Allie anchoring), and it was an intense race.”

Newcastle was behind the team from Pinedale through the first two legs of the race, but then Beastrom and Lunstra caught up for an exciting finish.

“Allie came in with the girl from Pinedale, and it all came down to who touched first,” Beastrom said. “It ended up just half-a-second difference with Allie finishing first.”

For the first time in quite some time Newcastle advanced all three relay teams to the finals on Friday.

The 200 Medley Relay team of Smith, Beastrom, Lunstra and Rose finished ninth in both prelims and finals, while the 400 Freestyle Relay team of Veronica Ayers, Kathryn Huber, Sara Huey, and Jaydenn Nelson was 10th in prelims, then Nelson was switched out for Smith in the finals where the team also finished 10th.

“Jaydenn’s shoulder has been bothering her since
the conference meet.” Scribner said. “So, we moved Shelby onto the relay for finals
on Friday.”

In reflecting on the season, Scribner was very pleased with the growth his team showed over the year.

“This was a very strong team. They practiced hard and they competed hard. Most of the girls learned all the strokes and competed in all the strokes. We had a few new swimmers, and every single swimmer on the team scored points for us through the course of the season, which isn’t always easy to do.”

The Lady Dogies will graduate Beastrom, Rose and Huey this year, but Scribner anticipates that three pretty strong freshmen will be joining the squad next season.

“This was a great season and it was a great way to end my career by standing on the podium for the first time,” Beastrom said, grinning. “I never imagined being in the top six at state, so that was very cool.”