Dogies qualify another for state
Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
The Dogies Swim team had a slow week with only one short dual in Buffalo last Friday, but one swimmer took advantage of the break to punch one more ticket to the State meet.
James Cox had previously qualified in the 100 meter backstroke, but last Friday he cut five seconds from his best time to qualify in the 100 Butterfly with a time of 1:11.53.
“James had a great swim,” exclaimed head coach Doug Scribner. “Qualifying time is 1:13 so dropping so much time and coming in two seconds under is awesome for him, especially at such a fast meet.”
The Dogies were at full capacity with all eight members competing and as such, Scribner was able to enter two 200 Medley Relay teams which is the first event of the contest. Throughout the season, Scribner has been changing up the lineup for the relay in order to identify which of his swimmers will perform best at each stroke, and having the ability to enter two teams last Friday offered him even more opportunities to try different lineups.
“With the conference meet only being two weeks away, I wanted to try out a couple of different situations so I could get an idea of who would do best in which leg,” he began. “I will be putting together our best option, for this and the other two relays, this weekend in Gillette so we can get our best time for seeding for Conference.”
Austen Kenney won the 50 Free, but is still just off qualifying in that event. Scribner stated that they are still working on some aspects of his race to give him the jump he needs to drop the hundreths of a second in order to get him over the hump.
Conrad Prell swam the 500 Free with his best time yet this season. Qualifying time is 6:24 in this grueling event and Prell swam a 6:35 on Friday. Though dropping 11 seconds may appear daunting, in a race of that distance, it boils down to only needing to cut ½ second per 25.
“Conrad is nursing a sprained ankle that happened over Christmas break, so he’s been struggling a little pushing off the wall on his turns,” Scribner explained. “He looked a lot better in Buffalo so that is promising and with a little more confidence, he is very capable of getting under the 6:24 mark.”
The second half of the meet was pretty busy for the Dogies because most were competing then. With littler recovery time between events, Scribner noted that his swimmers began to show fatigue.
“James Cox swam the backstroke and his time wasn’t any better than it’s been,” he admitted. “Garrett Merchen got second in the breaststroke and had a pretty good swim for being tired, but his time wasn’t up where it’s been.”
Though times may have been a little slower, Dogies once again raced pretty well. In addition to Kenney bringing home the first place finish in the 50 Free, Robert Humes did the same in the 100 Free and Cox was second in both the 100 Fly and the 100 Backstroke.
With the season winding down, Scribner and his team are focusing on fine tuning the technical aspects of their races in order to get a few more qualified for the State meet which is approaching quickly.
The Dogies will be heading to Gillette this Friday and Saturday in their final meet before the Conference meet the following week. Though the Last Chance Qualifier meet remains prior to State, time is running short to put up a qualifying time.
Not only will the boys be competing in Gillette this weekend, but so will a handful of Lady Dogie Swimmers. Hannah Gross, Madi Townsend, Emily Beastrom, Autumn Mills and Olivia McVay will be taking the opportunity to get in the water along with their male counterparts.