“We really swam and dove the best we could to get that place that we did,” said a proud PHS head coach Luke Robertson, adding that, “They should feel really good about that sixth place finish.”
Eleven Powell girls competed in 21 different …
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Posting their best times of the season in almost every single event, Powell High School’s girls swim team claimed sixth place at the Class 3A State Meet.
“We really swam and dove the best we could to get that place that we did,” said a proud PHS head coach Luke Robertson, adding that, “They should feel really good about that sixth place finish.”
Eleven Powell girls competed in 21 different events at the Friday-Saturday competition in Gillette, posting season-best times in 19 of them.
It was just enough to edge seventh-place Buffalo by two points.
Buffalo was stronger in some events where Powell was weaker and vice versa, so “it was kind of back-and-forth throughout the meet,” Robertson said.
The Lady Panthers clinched their spot in their final swim of the day — a crucial fifth-place finish by the 400-yard freestyle relay team of junior Aspen Aguirre, senior Claire Miner, junior Julia Kay O’Neill and sophomore Caitlyn Miner; their final time was six seconds faster than their best during the regular season and conference.
Coming off a championship performance at conference, PHS’ 200-yard individual medley relay team of O’Neill, Caitlyn Miner, Rylie Kannard and Aspen Aguirre shaved three seconds off their conference-winning time and also finished fifth. Robertson said they looked “really good.”
Caitlyn Miner also took sixth place in both the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard freestyle.
Beyond that quartet of top-six performances, “it was just an accumulation of everybody else doing their part to get us to that sixth place,” Robertson said, noting a number of girls who scored points for the team by making it into the consolation finals.
While some teams racked up all their points from a couple first-place finishes, “I think it’s neat when you see it’s not one or two people, it’s the whole team that’s doing that,” Robertson said of Powell’s balanced performance.
Having so many of the girls post their best times of the year — and in most cases, of their careers — served as a pay-off for the coaches’ and athletes’ work and preparations over the last couple of months.
“Really, at the end of day, it comes down to them wanting it, and being able to put together that race or dive,” Robertson said of his team.
PHS finished with 87 points, 34 points below fifth-place Douglas and just above Buffalo’s 85.
Lander ran away with the state title, amassing 321 points. Pinedale, the 3A runner-up, had 177.
200 Medley Relay
5. Julia Kay O’Neill, Caitlyn Miner, Rylie Kannard and Aspen Aguirre 2:01.66
200 Free
14. Katrina Twitchell 2:18.82
200 IM
11. Claire Miner 2:34.48, 19. Katie Brown 2:37.38, 21. Emily McCaslin 2:43.61
50 Free
13. Aspen Aguirre 27.64
Diving
8. O’Neill 287.55
100 Fly
8. Claire Miner 1:10.59, 10. Kannard 1:12.63, 10. Ashlyn Aguirre 1:15.35
100 Free
6. Caitlyn Miner 58.78, 13. Aspen Aguirre 1:01.73
500 Free
11. Anna Fuller 6:19.37, 13. Brown 6:17.43, 16. Kendyl Bohlman 6:23.15, 21. Twitchell 6:28.15
200 Free Relay
10. Claire Miner, Bohlman, Brown and Twitchell 1:54.65
100 Back
8. O’Neill 1:07.09, 14. Kannard 1:08.84
100 Breast
6. Caitlyn Miner 1:15.28
400 Free Relay
5. Aspen Aguirre, Claire Miner, O’Neill and Caitlyn Miner 4:07.83