Three men qualify for state

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Dogie swimmers had to wait three weeks to get their season under way, but the men evidently made the most of their practice time as James Cox, Zade Orsborn and Ramsey Gross all punched their tickets to the state meet in one or more events in their first weekend of competition.
“We had a really great start to the season, probably the best we’ve ever had,” head coach Doug Scribner smiled. “They’ve been working hard, and our goal is to get up to where we were last season as soon as possible. With all the [personal records] we had this weekend, we are in pretty good shape to do that.”
Qualifying for the state meet is no easy feat, and this year the challenge was made even tougher by new, faster times set by the WHSAA, which makes the accomplishments of the two swimmers even more impressive.
James Cox started out his senior season by qualifying in the 100 Backstroke, his signature race, in the dual against Douglas on Friday afternoon by winning the race in 1:05.63 which is also a personal best. He followed that up on Saturday by qualifying in the 100 Butterfly with a time of 1:10.52
“James has never swam a 1:05 in the backstroke, so he PR’d by a long way,” Scribner began. “His goal has been to qualify earlier in the season each year, so he was pretty excited to get two in the opening weekend.”
Zade Orsborn also punched his ticket in his inaugural meet on Friday, finishing second in the 100 Butterfly with a personal best time of 1:09.60, which is two seconds under the 3A qualifying time. Orsborn also swam a PR in the 50 Free, finishing just a little over a second short of qualifying in that event as well.
On Saturday, Orsborn competed in the 100 and 200 Free. In the former, the junior was just half a second away from qualifying and in the latter, only .89 seconds away. His time in the 100 Free was also three seconds faster than he swam it on Friday in his leg of the 400 Free Relay.
“Zade was a little nervous about swimming the 200 after the day before, and neither of us were sure how he would do, but he was swimming next to a kid who was really fast,” Scribner explained. “I told him not to take out his first 100 very hard and just to focus on the second 100, but he stayed with the kid next to him really pretty well and just barely missed qualifying. That gave him some confidence so he should be able to add that really pretty easily.”
Newcomer Ramsey Gross was the third Dogie to punch his state ticket, doing so by winning the 1 Meter Diving competition and scoring 148.30 points in the process. The freshman increased his score from Friday by 12 points and edged out the diver from Douglas who had finished ahead of him as well. 
“Ramsey was a little nervous on Friday which is understandable as it was his first high school meet,” Scribner acknowledged. “On Saturday, he was a little more comfortable and really executed his dives pretty well to get the win and the qualifying score.” 
Conrad Prell swam the 500 on Friday and finished close to what he did his sophomore year when he qualified in that race. Prell suffered some injuries last season which kept him out of the water for much of the year, but he had a successful cross country season this fall and has started strong in his final year in the pool. 
“He was excited to get started after cross country and to start off swimming a 6:37 is a really strong swim for him,” Scribner nodded. “I would expect him to qualify since he only has to drop 17 seconds to do it.”
Travis Scribner and Grayson Ramsey also had a good meet swimming personal best times in the 100 Breaststroke as both dropped three seconds off their fastest time from last year. As a matter of fact, had the qualifying times remained the same as last season, both would have been under the time therefore would have qualified for the state meet.
After the first weekend, several Dogies are zeroing in on more qualifications. Orsborn is close in the 50, 100 and 200 Free, Prell is close in the 500 Free, Cox is close in the 50 Free while Scribner and Ramsey are both close in the 100 Breaststroke. 
“Looking at where the guys were last year, I was pretty sure we could get everyone qualified and, after this weekend, I feel really confident we will do that,” Scribner determined. “Our goal this year is to get some guys to place at the state meet and I also think we have a good shot at doing that.”
The Dogies now have three more weeks before the next meet. When they come back after Christmas break, they go to Gillette for invitational meets on Friday, Jan. 8, and Saturday, Jan. 9.