The Powell Panther swim and dive team was in the middle of the pack with a fourth place finish at the 3A North Conference meet in Gillette on Friday and Saturday.

Powell finished with 169 points, well behind third place Cody with 255 points but ahead of Newcastle in fifth place with 103 points. Buffalo ran away with the team title with 340 points in the meet, hosted by the Bison in Gillette.

“We were very pleased with the overall performance of the team,” coach Stephanie Warren said. “Considering the way things worked out we did really well.”

The Panthers were missing one of their top swimmers, Adam Williams, due to injury.

“Adam was injured. We told him to rest for state, that’s our goal,” Warren said. “We are kind of taking it easy with him.”

Powell finished with a host of championship final swimmers, the highest being a couple of third place finishers.

Gabe Rose finished third in the 100 fly (59.72) and Will Fuller in the 100 back (1:00.46).

A couple of Panthers earned fourth place finishes, including Hugh Carpenter in the 200 free (2:01.74) and Jon Hawley in diving (329.6).

“The diving was interesting, we thought there would be a few more. The kid that won diving we hadn’t seen all year,” Warren said. “3A had more divers than 4A did. We threw some of our more difficult dives in preparation for state.”

Warren and assistant coach Jerry Rodriguez were pleased with the results for the Panthers, with most kids posting time drops on the weekend. Also, nearly every swimmer in attendance swam in a sectional final on Saturday.

“We just had two kids that didn’t swim on Saturday with everybody there,” Warren said. “They had good time cuts in their swims.”

Powell has now seen nearly every team that will compete in the state meet on Feb. 16-17 in Laramie, with the Panthers seeing the Bearcats for the first time this season before heading to state.

“At least we could see them (Douglas) before going to state so we know what we have to look forward to going into state,” Warren said.

One final meet will happen before the state meet, with the Panthers heading to Cody on Tuesday (tonight) for a last chance meet at 5 p.m.

That will give swimmers one last opportunity to pick up a qualifying standard for the state meet either for the first time, or picking up another time to give options in Laramie.

“The whole team has said they want to go compete in Cody on Tuesday. They all want to see if they can pick up a time,” Warren said. “Three of them that want to qualify, we are focusing on that through Tuesday. Then we will focus our shift after that towards state the next weekend.”

3A NORTH CONFERENCE

* Denotes state qualifying mark. Top 12 placements are finals times, p denotes preliminary time

Team scores — 1. Buffalo 340, 2. Riverton 274, 3. Cody 255, 4. Powell 169, 5. Newcastle 103, 6. Douglas 91, 7. Worland 47

200 medley relay — 4. Will Fuller, Gabe Rose, Conner Mayes and Hugh Carpenter 1:54.33

200 free — 4. Hugh Carpenter 2:01.74*, 12. Trystan Preator 2:16.18

200 IM — 5. Gabe Rose 2:15.63, 10. Conner Mayes 2:34.05, 14. Jon Hawley 2:49.48p

50 free — 11. Taggart Shumway 26.68, 14. Conner Mayes 27.31, 23. Lukas Legler 30.49

1-meter diving (11 dives) — 4. Jon Hawley 329.6*, 5. Garrett Lennon 301.55*, 7. Taggart Shumway 272.2*

100 fly — 3. Gabe Rose 59.72*, 6. Trystan Preator 1:06.81*

100 free — 9. Will Fuller 55.34*, 11. Garrett Lennon 59.91, 12. Gabe Buchholtz 1:03.09p (DQ in finals)

500 free — 7. Hugh Carpenter 5:48.71*, 15. Lukas Legler 6:57.93p

200 free relay — 4. Conner Mayes, Jon Hawley, Taggart Shumway and Garrett Lennon 1:44.96

100 back — 3. Will Fuller 1:00.46*, 13. Gabe Buchholtz 1:13.87, 16. Branton Moore 1:23.62p

100 breast — 18. Branton Moore 1:34.41p

400 free relay — 3. Hugh Carpenter, Garrett Lennon, Gabe Rose and Will Fuller 3:46.37