Testing the waters for state

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
Though short four members of the squad, the Lady Dogie Swim Team headed to their biggest meet of the year in Laramie last Friday and Saturday where they competed well to earn 15th place out of 19 teams, many of whom were 4A schools.
“I was really pretty happy with how our girls did this weekend,” head coach Doug Scribner smiled. “We had a few personal bests and the girls also got to get a taste of the state meet venue so that was really great for us.”
Hannah Gross, who has qualified in every individual swimming event, once again had a very successful weekend improving her already fast times and setting personal bests in every race. She dropped three and a half seconds in the 200 Freestyle, shaved off half a second in the 100 Backstroke and two-tenths of a second in the 50 Free, while also setting a personal best for the year in the 100 Freestyle.
“Hannah thrives on competition,” Scribner declared. “When she is in a heat where she’s swimming against girls who are either as fast as or faster than her, she really excels in that situation. Only 4A girls beat her over the weekend.”
Gross was not alone in swimming fast times. Autumn Mills dropped a second in the 100 Freestyle for a PR in that event and also dropped good time in the 50 Backstroke leg of the 200 Medley Relay. Emily Beastrom also picked up a PR in the 50 Free by taking off one-half second from her best time of the season.
Being shorthanded meant that the team was not able to fill all three relay teams without compromising an individual event. However, the ladies who competed made the most of their situation improving times in the relays they were able to swim.
“We scratched the 200 Free on Friday and the 400 Free on Saturday in order to avoid having girls swim back-to-back events,” Scribner explained. “As it turned out, relay times were better this week than they were last week and we saw some good drops.”
Scribner went on to explain that they are at a time in the season where every swimmer has competed in enough different relays that he has a time for everyone on every leg. Having those times to compare showed there were drops of up to six seconds, which bodes well with the conference meet looming this weekend.
“They responded really well to the conditions last weekend. Laramie is the venue for state, so it allowed them to get their feet wet a little bit,” Scribner stated. “This was especially helpful for Hannah who is guaranteed to swim two individual events. She responded really well to traveling and to the pool, although she had swam there before in club state so it wasn’t a totally new experience for her.”
This Friday and Saturday, the Lady Dogies will be in Douglas for the 3A East Conference Meet. As a meter pool, the venue is a bit longer than other competition pools around the state, but Scribner is not concerned that it will impact his athletes given they swam there at their invitational recently.
The Lady Dogies have been working hard on technique, turns and starts which Scribner reported are all improving, so he expects to see more seconds dropping from times.
In order to advance from preliminary races on Friday to the finals on Saturday, swimmers must finish in the top four of their individual events and in the top 12 of the relay events. Given there are only six teams competing, as long as the relays don’t disqualify they are guaranteed to advance to the state meet.