FEDERAL WAY — Before the Anacortes High School swimming and diving team started competition in the Class 2A state meet, head coach Leslie Mix said she’d like to see the Seahawks finish in the top three.
Thanks to a relay championship and a host of other fierce performances, they did just that.
The Anacortes 200 freeestyle relay team won the Class 2A state championship Saturday and the Seahawks collected three second-place individual finishes on their way to third place at state.
Anacortes’ 61 team points left it behind Squalilcum (65) and champion Aberdeen (83).
“It was a pretty good day,” Mix said. “The 200 free relay team was awesome, (diver) Mallorie (Estenson) did great and Jenna Whitney in the 200 IM improved and moved up.”
The 200 freestyle relay team of Hayley Rieger, Rosie Jenssen, Hannah Brennan and Katie Kaestner swam the race in 1 minute, 45.63 seconds, improving on their preliminary time (1:46.54) staying ahead of the field, which included Northwest Conference rivals Sehome and Bellingham, who finished second (1:47.76) and third (1:47.99) respectively.
Mix said the swim wasn’t the team’s best this season, but said they turned in just the performance they needed.
“Coming out on top is what it’s all about,” she said.
The two senior members of the team said their closeness as a team helped them perform better.
“Being on a relay team, the way you get pumped up is by being together,” Jenssen said.
“Swimming is more of a team sport than people think,” Rieger added.
Kaestner, a freshman, also finished second in two individual events: the 100 breaststroke (1:09.43) and the 50 freestyle (24.46).
Sophomore diver Mallorie Estenson also earned a second-place finish, scoring 309.75 points to finish behind only River Ridge’s Asha Srivastava, who won with 315.60.
Both scores bettered the previous Class 2A meet record by Sequim’s Stacia Bibler, who scored 301.45 in 2006.
“I didn’t have any specific goals, I just wanted to do my best,” said Estenson, who also competed in last year’s state meet. “My best turned out to be really good.”
Whitney, a freshman, came into the individual medley seeded eighth but improved her time from her prelim time from 2:22.09 to 2:21.81 to finish seventh.
In other events, Whitney added a fifth-place finish in the 100 breastroke (1:11.47) and Sara Brennan was eighth (1:15.10). Hannah Brennan finished eighth in the 200 freestyle (2:08.77).
The 400 freestyle relay team of Whitney, Stephanie Nelson, Hannah Brennan and Kaestner finished fourth (3:52.46) and the 200 medley relay team of Whitney, Sara Brennan, Nelson and Rieger was seventh (2:02.91).
The other area swimmer in the Class 2A meet, Carolyn Wortham of Burlington-Edison, improved on her prelim time for a sixth-place finish (25.80) in the 50 freestyle.
Notes
When Jackson’s Amber McDermott finished the 500 freestyle in an astonishing 4:41.98, she left a pair of records in her wake: the state record of 4:49.59, and the Class 4A meet record of 4:50.82, which had previously been set by Mix when she swam for Issaquah. Mix presented McDermott with her medal ... The Class 2A Swimmer of the Meet was Othello’s Natilee Ruiz, who won the 100 backstroke (58.32) and the 50 freestyle (23.97), both with automatic All-American times. Ruiz is only a freshman.
• Trevor Pyle can be reached at 360-416-2156 or by e-mail at
